The European Commission on Monday called for both forced marriage and illegal adoption to become types of exploitation criminalized as trafficking in human beings in all European Union countries, a change that is part of the review Brussels is presenting to strengthen the fight against the sexual and labor exploitation of people.
The Community Executive also wants to criminal prosecution in all European Union countries of clients who, being aware that a person is a victim of trafficking in human beings, contract prostitution services with this victim.
«We have a good directive, a directive that works, but it needs key amendments,» said the Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson, at a press conference in Brussels to explain that it raises mandatory changes for measures that until now were optional and almost no country has applied, such as criminal prosecution of forced marriages, illegal adoption or prostitution of victims of mafias.
Therefore, the revision proposed by the EU services calls for binding changes so that Member States are obliged to include forced marriage and illegal adoption as forms of trafficking in their national criminal law.
It also calls for an explicit reference to human trafficking offenses committed or facilitated through information and communication technologies, including the internet and social networks.
Among the keys of the Community Executive is also the fight against «impunity» with mandatory sanctions for companies that allow trafficking, for example by excluding these companies from public benefits or decreeing the temporary or permanent closure of establishments where the crime has been committed.
Brussels also calls for national mechanisms to improve the early identification of victims and their orientation to access the support and assistance they need, while noting that these national instruments should be the basis for a European orientation mechanism at a later stage with such national focal points.
Another measure is the annual collection of Europe-wide data on trafficking in human beings, the results of which will be published by the European statistics office, Eurostat.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
