The Committee of Women's Rights and Gender Equality (FEMM) jointly with the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) organise a seminar on combating and preventing trafficking in human beings, in the European Parliament in Brussels.

Brussels

Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs

fight against trafficking in human beings (T)

HEDH, Anna (S&D, SE)

seminar

Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality

Combating and preventing trafficking in human beings: extract from the seminar

SOUNDBITE (Swedish), Anna HEDH (S&amp;D, SE), In this year 2010 people are being bought and sell as slaves in Europe despite the fact that slavery was banned over than 250 years ago. These people are forced into prostitution, force labour or begging and they often end up with an owner... Trafficking in human being is one of the most serious crimes in the world and unfortunately it is growing in importance, it is a serious violation of human rights and we in the EU are doing what we can to make sure that these rights are maintained.

SOUNDBITE (English) Steve HARVEY, EUROPOL, We need to provide a hostile environment in which traffickers work. Traffickers are professional criminals; they assess the risks; if the risks are too great they will sift their operations to some other area. At the moment I don't think we have a hostile environment, it isn't hostile enough, because we have traffickers operating across the EU without too much difficulty. Whereas the efforts of member states have improved drastically over the last decade in combating trafficking, there is still room for improvement.

SOUNDBITE (English) Steve HARVEY, EUROPOL, The use of code of surveillance, communications intercept, the use of undercover officers... these are special investigation techniques that are used on a daily basis to investigate and prosecute other professional criminals. But we do not see them being used on a regular basis in investigation and prosecution of traffickers, I don't know why... I don't have the answers to why trafficking is not prioritised in the same way other crimes are, but clearly if it was a priority we wouldn't be coming back to these forums to discuss how we raise interest in getting trafficking dealt with at the same level as drug trafficking for example.

SOUNDBITE (English) Steve HARVEY, EUROPOL, EUROPOL is a law enforcement agency, we are bound by legislation national, European and international and our own legislation and we act accordingly; our main role is to support the member states, we have no coercive or executive powers... We can only do so much; we would like to be doing more, and within the involvement of member states in ensuring that investigations are developed at cross border level we can do more.

SOUNDBITE (English) Olav LAURELL, EUROJUST, If it is a crime to buy sexual services from a trafficked woman, no man who buys sexual services will ask. It will not be possible for a prosecutor to prove that in Court. These women have not chosen this occupation (...) it's sad to say but it's very common in Europe today that prostitutes are trafficked.