Debate: Amending Directive //EU on preventing and combating trafficking in human beings and protecting its victims
Date: MONDAY, 22 APRIL 2024
Speaker: Ylva Johansson
Language: EN

It will soon be a crime in the whole European Union to knowingly use the services of trafficked victims, not only victims of sexual exploitation, but also other forms of trafficking like labour exploitation. Previously, this was only criminalised in some Member States and now we are ending this patchwork of practices. We are making it a crime in all Member States. And this, to me, personally, was a very important goal when I put forward a proposal to update the Anti-Trafficking Directive. Trafficking is a heinous crime. Traffickers can sell drugs only once, sell weapons only once, but they can sell a woman’s body again and again and again and again. The message is now clear to anyone thinking of buying sex from a trafficked woman: there will be consequences – there will be prison. So you can be proud. You can be proud also that we will be protecting more people by clearly forbidding new forms of trafficking, zero tolerance for forced marriage, zero tolerance for illegal adoption and, at the initiative of the European Parliament, zero tolerance for trafficking for surrogate mothers. I propose the law and you improve the law. Trafficking is not only a terrible crime, it is also a European crime, a crime committed in the European Union by EU citizens against EU citizens – not only, but also – and thanks to you, we will now have a more European and more effective approach to fight this crime. When I started nearly five years ago, I was not sure we would achieve this, but thanks to your strong commitment, zero votes against in the joint LIBE-FEMM committee and unanimous agreement by the Member States, it is an amazing achievement. So I would like to thank specially the rapporteurs, Malin Björk and María Eugenia Rodríguez Palop, and of course all the shadows and their teams. And I would like also to thank the Swedish, Spanish and Belgian Presidencies for this achievement. Thank you for getting the job done so quickly and so thoroughly. Our most powerful tool against trafficking is legislation and you are the legislators. Thanks to you, we will be able to better prevent trafficking, protect victims, and prosecute perpetrators. The updated Anti-Trafficking Directive will help to identify victims earlier, assisting them in helping to bring them home with referral mechanisms in all Member States. Better coordinate our work against trafficking with mandatory national anti-trafficking coordinators in all Member States. The new directive will put the fight against trafficking on the top of the agenda. All Member States will now draft national action plans with concrete measures against traffickers and to protect victims. And we made online sexual exploitation an aggravating circumstance, which can mean higher penalties for perpetrators, because the internet is now used to commit all forms of trafficking – and also to provide statistics on this threat, to know how we could fight the enemy. Soon you will vote on the new Anti-Trafficking Directive. And when you vote, I ask you to think about Susan. I call on you to vote ‘yes’ with the same overwhelming convictions as you did in the committees, to show the crime of trafficking of human beings will not stand in Europe, and to show women like Susan: they can count on us.