Mafias move around 200 billion dollars (185 billion euros) around the world every year and the EU has a plan to put an end to them.
“Impunity is over,” declared Ylva Johansson, European Commissioner for the Interior, at a meeting on trafficking in human beings for sexual purposes and labor. The challenge is enormous: of the 821 most dangerous criminal networks in the EU identified by Europol, 55 are mainly dedicated to human trafficking.
“Last year, this sector generated more than 200 billion dollars (185,000 million euros) worldwide. Now we are fighting against the culture of impunity with a new asset recovery standard that I have proposed,” explains Ylva Joh.
Luxury cars and big mansions
“We are going to deprive criminals of their luxury cars, their big mansions and their mountains of money“he says. The new directive on combating human trafficking aims to criminalize the “knowing use” of trafficking victims in all Member States.
The EU Home Affairs Commissioner says that “knowingly using the services of victims of trafficking soon will be a criminal offense throughout the European Union”. Previously, this practice was only classified as a crime in some European countries.
How to combat human trafficking?
The sexual exploitation is not the only form of trafficking in human beings, since it40% of victims are exploited to perform forced labor. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has also exposed the Ukrainian refugees to greater risk from human traffickers.
“Ukrainian women and children remain vulnerable. The threat is not over. We must remain vigilant. And I am delighted that in March Europol create a task force against traffickers that are targeting Ukrainians,” added Ylva Johansson.
In April, a joint action by Europol and 31 countries was carried out to combat labor exploitation of third country nationals and refugees.
21 detainees and 334 victims
The operation resulted in “51 arrests and the identification of 334 potential victims“, says Cosmin Boiangiu, executive director from European Labor Authoritywho adds that “inspections were carried out in various sectors such as catering, the food industry, beauty services, logistics, agriculture and construction.”
The new directive also will allow stopping other types of traffickingsuch as forced marriages, surrogate mothers and illegal adoptions.
