EN Official Journal of the European Union CE 88/550

(2004/C 88 E/0561)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-0919/04

by Proinsias De Rossa (PSE) to the Commission

(26 March 2004)

Subject: Trafficking in human beings

Trafficking in human beings is a global problem which is on the increase. Women and children constitute the majority of those who are trafficked, very often for purposes of sexual exploitation.

The Commission has acknowledged that trafficking in human beings is a type of organised crime that needs to be tackled at European level and has taken steps to deal with this problem, for example by establishing the Expert Group on Trafficking in Human Beings.

Is the Commission cooperating with other international actors on a global level so as to develop measures to combat trafficking in human beings throughout the world? What courses of action have been proposed? What is the Commission doing to encourage EU Member States and all the signatories to the UN Convention against Transnational Organised Crime to ratify and implement the Convention and commit to its ‘Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in People, Especially Women and Children’?

Answer given by Mr Vitorino on behalf of the Commission

(30 April 2004)

The Commission continuously maintains relations and cooperates with other international actors such as the United Nations (UN), the Organization on Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the Council of Europe (CoE) in order to prevent and combat trafficking in human beings. In particular, the Commission signed, on behalf of the Community, the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in People, Especially Women and Children supplementing the UN Convention against Transnational Organised Crime. On several occasions, the Commission has called on Member States to ratify the Protocol as soon as possible. In order to promote and accelerate implementation of the Protocol at EU level, the Commission launched a proposal for a Council Framework Decision on combating trafficking in human beings (1), which was adopted on 19 July 2002. Member States shall have implemented the Framework Decision before August 2004. Furthermore, in October 2003 the Council adopted a resolution ‘Combating trafficking in human beings, in particular women’ with an aim to further accelerate ratification and implementation by Member States of all international instruments against trafficking in human beings and to intensify international cooperation in the fields of prevention, victim protection and assistance.

In February 2003, the Commission contributed to a Tri-Partite Plus meeting, which was organised by the UN in Geneva. The meeting brought together representatives from various inter-national and supranational organisations and institutions (OSCE, CoE, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and others) and aimed at a better coordination of their policies and measures against human trafficking. In May 2003, the Commission attended the 12th session of the UN Commission on Crime Prevention, which focused on trafficking in human beings, especially women and children.

Currently, the Commission is participating in the negotiations in the CoE concerning a European Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings. In particular, the Commission will as soon as possible submit to the Council a recommendation for a Council decision authorising the Commission to negotiate the draft convention and corresponding directives covering those Community competencies that are relevant for a number of articles of the draft Convention. Besides this, for the remaining third pillar issues, the Commission will submit a proposal for a common position.

The prevention of and the fight against trafficking in human beings is constantly an issue in relations between the EU and third countries in Eastern Europe and in the Western Balkans. In the context of the EU-Africa dialogue the Commission supported the elaboration of an action plan on trafficking in human beings, which is — for reasons not related to human trafficking — still awaiting formal adoption. Another example of the Commission's activities is the participation as an observer in the so-called ‘Bali Process’, which is a regional initiative including meetings at political and experts' level in Southeast-Asia further to the Bali Conference in February 2002 on People Smuggling, Trafficking in Persons and Related Transnational Crime.

(1) OJ L 203, 1.8.2002.