European Union Policies on Human Trafficking 

On May 9th, 1950, the French foreign minister of the time, Robert Schuman, presented a plan he called the Europe Plan, which he had developed with the French businessman Jean Monet alongside the German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer. What started as a plan, the Europe Plan, to prevent the human destruction and utter devastation that the world witnessed in World War II has been modified and shaped into the world’s foremost example of unmatched international cooperativity. That infamous Mayday set the stage for the Treaties of Paris, Rome, and Maastricht - in that order - to found the EU. Progress in developing the European Union continued with the Single European Act (SEA), the Treaty of Amsterdam, and the Treaty of Nice which played major roles in modifying the founding treaties into the European Union that is so recognizable today.

A key aspect of the European Union is its unique decision making process structure for creating and implementing protocols throughout the Member States. First, the European Commission drafts new proposals which are ratified through a voting process in both the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union. The European Commission works to implement and execute EU decisions jointly with the Member States and their respective local authorities. Like any decision-making body, oversight is necessary to compensate for human errors as well as malintent. On that note, the European Court of Justice operates to provide legal oversight while the European Court of Auditors is responsible for financial oversight. This elaborate decision-making process can result in binding rules as well as non-binding rules. Binding rules come in three forms which include: regulations, directives, and decisions. Regulations are directly applicable in all Member States. Directives must be transposed into national law in some Member States. Lastly, decisions address a group of Member States, people, or individuals to specify a result that is to be achieved. Regarding non-binding rules, the EU can present recommendations and opinions to either just one Member State or to a group of Member States.

The Member States of the European Union share responsibilities with the Union as they fill different, and sometimes overlapping, roles in policy creation. For example, the European Union alone has the ability to create legislation regarding customs unions, competition rules, monetary policy, trade, and marine plants and animals for implementation in the Member States. Separately, the European Union, as well as the national governments of Member States, are legally able to pass laws on the following subjects: the single market, employment and social affairs, economic and social and territorial cohesion, agriculture, fisheries, the environment, consumer protection, transport, trans-European networks, energy, security and justice, public health, research and space, and development and cooperation and humanitarian aid. In this way, the national governments of the EU’s Member States work alongside the main governing bodies of the European Union to comprehensively deliver policies and protocols to all European citizens.

One such area of policy in the European Union focusses on human trafficking in the greater context of organized crime. While it may come as a surprise to see such grotesque human natures in the sparklingly modern European Union, Member States of the EU reported 15,846 victims of human trafficking solely between 2013 and 2014. Of these documented cases, the vast majority, seventy-six percent, were female. Out of those 15,856 trafficked individuals, sixty-seven percent were sexually exploited, twenty-one percent were forced into other types of labor, and an additional twelve percent were trafficked for other reasons including non-consensual organ harvesting. It is important to note one key piece of missing information that cannot be used to generate statistics which is the vast number of unreported, undetected victims of human trafficking.

Before one can delve into the various international and European policies that are targeted towards the problem of human tracking in Europe, it is necessary to be competent with the phrase itself. The term ‘human trafficking’ carries various connotations depending on the context; its true definition is a broad, all-encompassing scenario in which humans are being moved and used against their will. Specifically, the United Nations formally defines human trafficking as “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of persons by improper means (such as force, abduction, fraud, or coercion) for an improper purpose including forced labor or sexual exploitation. Proving the complexity of the term ‘human trafficking’, the United States of America’s government includes using individuals as debt bondage in their definition, as well. For use in official documents, the European Union uses the United Nations’ definition of human trafficking. Simply put, at its root, human trafficking is constituted by three key elements: an act, the means for the act, and a situation of exploitation or the intention to exploit.

When it comes to the problem of human trafficking in Europe, there is no shortage of organizations lending standards and suggested protocols to limit the extent of the trafficking and to provide aid to its’ victims. Chronologically speaking, the International Labor Organization (ILO), the Council of Europe, the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), and the European Union have all moved to act on the tragedy of the trafficking of human beings in Europe. These international and supranational organizations have the power to lead independent countries in their approach to identifying, prosecuting, and preventing human trafficking. However, the power that the documents put for by these aforementioned organizations have to actually prosecute the perpetrators and provide for the victims is far more limited.