Part 13 - Human Trafficking: Causes, Consequences and Counter-Measures

Prevention in Countries of Destination

Destination countries can assist trafficked persons by providing them with residency and employment permits. Rapidly sending trafficked persons back to their countries of origin is problematic. Sometimes, criminals wait for a deported person and then re-traffick him or her. Moreover, a trafficked person, if sent back without receiving long-term assistance, faces the same socio-economic conditions that made him or her leave the home country in the first place. Assisting trafficked persons in countries of destination is a pre-requisite for the successful prosecution of traffickers as well since prosecutors need victim-witnesses. Destination countries have not provided sufficient incentives to trafficked persons to testify against traffickers.

Stopping trafficking at borders is another strategy. But simply strengthening border controls can have a counterproductive effect because migrants (especially those without valid papers) become more reliant on the services of human smugglers and traffickers. Moreover, identifying trafficked persons at border crossings is difficult because migrants often do not know that they are being trafficked during the migration process.

Human trafficking, as other forms of crime, relies on the interplay of supply and demand. To reduce the supply of services offered under conditions of coercion and deception, it is crucial to reduce the demand for these services. That means to tell buyers of sexual services, cheap labor or human organs that trafficking violates human rights and supports organised crime. However, relatively few programs so far have targeted the demand side of trafficking.

One of the most controversial questions of how to reduce trafficking for sexual purposes pertains to prostitution policies. There is a fierce debate over whether the legalisation or prohibition of prostitution is the best strategy against trafficking. Proponents of legalization argue that prohibition drives the sex industry underground, with harmful consequences for the health and safety of women. Proponents of criminalisation argue that legalisation increases trafficking and prevents the police from protecting women. They also believe that the distinction between voluntary and forced prostitution is a false one, arguing that prostitution is inevitably exploitative. A compromise between these two positions, now debated in several countries, is to punish clients who knowingly purchase services from trafficked persons.