Social Europe

politics, economy and employment & labour

  • Themes
    • Strategic autonomy
    • War in Ukraine
    • European digital sphere
    • Recovery and resilience
  • Publications
    • Books
    • Dossiers
    • Occasional Papers
    • Research Essays
    • Brexit Paper Series
  • Podcast
  • Videos
  • Newsletter

Ukraine re-emphasises need to combat human trafficking

Frances Fitzgerald 7th June 2022

Trafficking linked to the Ukraine exodus underscores the need to tackle this scourge—and for a unified EU response.

trafficking,Ukraine,women,sexual
Most adult Ukrainian refugees have been women—their vulnerability rendering them prey for traffickers (Gabriel Preda RO / shutterstock.com)

Human trafficking remains a scourge on our societies. Across Europe and the world, people are trafficked every day, mostly for sexual and labour exploitation. It is modern-day slavery and we must do our utmost to end this horrific phenomenon. In my work in the European Parliament, tackling and combatting trafficking is at the very top of my agenda.

As such, I recently travelled to The Hague in the Netherlands, as part of a mission with the European Parliament’s Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality to discuss how to combat human trafficking, and how to protect its victims.

Most vulnerable

My colleagues and I spoke with several Dutch national representatives tackling sexual exploitation, sexual violence and human trafficking, including about the policies they have in place. The war in Ukraine has crystallised this issue, with traffickers seeking to gain by trading in the most vulnerable as they flee their homes.

The reports of trafficking taking place at the Ukraine border are incredibly concerning and action must be taken to protect those affected. Police forces all across Europe must receive the appropriate training to be prepared when faced with situations where trafficking tends to occur, whether that be at border crossings or even in car parks and petrol-station forecourts. We must try our best to prevent this, rather than cure it after the fact, and put in place concrete frameworks to stop this crisis from proliferating.


Our job is keeping you informed!


Subscribe to our free newsletter and stay up to date with the latest Social Europe content. We will never send you spam and you can unsubscribe anytime.

Sign up here

Given the continuing flow of refugees, arriving in European Union member states often with few or no possessions while fleeing conflict in their home country, it is the EU’s duty to step up in solidarity with the Ukrainian people. The only way this can happen efficiently is through an EU-wide anti-trafficking plan.

Raising awareness

This is what I asked of the European commissioner for home affairs, Ylva Johansson, in a joint letter with other MEPs: we must raise awareness about human trafficking among member states through collaboration with law enforcement and civil society. Moreover, we must take care of the most vulnerable and ensure that nobody coming to the EU from Ukraine can fall into the hands of traffickers.

Following calls for wider European co-operation, the commissioner published in late March a ten-point plan, with programmes to unify our efforts for welcoming Ukrainian refugees. Most importantly, this plan will ensure that arrivals in the EU will be overseen properly, to prevent situations of trafficking from slipping through the net.

While in the Netherlands, we also met members of civil-society organisations who seek to protect women fleeing from trafficking, as well as visiting a shelter which supports victims of trafficking. While gaining a useful insight into the work that these organisations do in protecting and empowering women, I learned much about how to support women not only to escape from those who have trafficked them but also to begin a new life afterwards—including by providing social supports such as housing, education and employment opportunities.

Prosecuting war crimes

The last stop on our mission was the International Criminal Court, where we learned about how evidence on sexual violence, rape and trafficking as war crimes is being collected, and how those crimes are being prosecuted. A priority of mine, and of EU member states, is to ensure Russia is held accountable for any war crimes committed by it or its soldiers. It would be utterly intolerable for Russian forces to be given any kind of immunity on this matter.

The Ukrainian people deserve justice. We must ensure that prosecutions for such horrendous crimes can be secured and withstand challenge. Drastic times call for drastic measures and we must do all in our power to fight this injustice.

When it comes to supporting someone who was raped or subject to sexual violence in a war zone, we need though look no further than our excellent non-governmental organisations. In the 1990s, I saw their effectiveness first-hand with the remarkable work of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre in the Bosnian war. The broad experience NGOs have in this area means they are uniquely equipped to support and assist victims of sexual violence, and we as policy-makers must support them in doing that important work.

The EU already supports NGOs in this regard, most notably through the Daphne programme, which seeks to tackle violence against women. This is a crucial programme and is part of a larger support to NGOs. As we witness continued violence and trafficking, in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the pandemic, such funding is vital.


We need your support


Social Europe is an independent publisher and we believe in freely available content. For this model to be sustainable, however, we depend on the solidarity of our readers. Become a Social Europe member for less than 5 Euro per month and help us produce more articles, podcasts and videos. Thank you very much for your support!

Become a Social Europe Member

Sharing success

At EU level, we are doing our utmost to tackle trafficking and violence against women and our mission to The Hague has cemented my view that member states have much to learn from each other in this fight. Many of the policies and initiatives presented by the Dutch minister for migration, Eric Van Der Burg, were worthy of note and Ireland among others can learn from them. I am sure other member states have similar policy success stories to share too.

When it comes to human trafficking, we must all work together to combat it—this is one of Europe’s strengths. For example, when we seek the prosecution of Russian soldiers, member states must work together to support the collection of evidence of war crimes by the Ukrainian authorities, to ensure robust convictions.

The Dutch example shows us that combating trafficking, for all victims from across the world, is possible—and that EU mechanisms are a crucial element in achieving this goal.

Frances Fitzgerald
Frances Fitzgerald

Frances Fitzgerald is a member of the Women's Rights and Gender Equality Committee in the European Parliament and vice-chair of the European People’s Party group. She has held various ministerial positions in Ireland, including as tánaiste (deputy premier), having been chair of the National Women’s Council and vice-president of the European Women’s Lobby.

You are here: Home / Society / Ukraine re-emphasises need to combat human trafficking

Most Popular Posts

Visentini,ITUC,Qatar,Fight Impunity,50,000 Visentini, ‘Fight Impunity’, the ITUC and QatarFrank Hoffer
Russian soldiers' mothers,war,Ukraine The Ukraine war and Russian soldiers’ mothersJennifer Mathers and Natasha Danilova
IGU,documents,International Gas Union,lobby,lobbying,sustainable finance taxonomy,green gas,EU,COP ‘Gaslighting’ Europe on fossil fuelsFaye Holder
Schengen,Fortress Europe,Romania,Bulgaria Romania and Bulgaria stuck in EU’s second tierMagdalena Ulceluse
income inequality,inequality,Gini,1 per cent,elephant chart,elephant Global income inequality: time to revise the elephantBranko Milanovic

Most Recent Posts

Pakistan,flooding,floods Flooded Pakistan, symbol of climate injusticeZareen Zahid Qureshi
reality check,EU foreign policy,Russia Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: a reality check for the EUHeidi Mauer, Richard Whitman and Nicholas Wright
permanent EU investment fund,Recovery and Resilience Facility,public investment,RRF Towards a permanent EU investment fundPhilipp Heimberger and Andreas Lichtenberger
sustainability,SDGs,Finland Embedding sustainability in a government programmeJohanna Juselius
social dialogue,social partners Social dialogue must be at the heart of Europe’s futureClaes-Mikael Ståhl

Other Social Europe Publications

front cover scaled Towards a social-democratic century?
Cover e1655225066994 National recovery and resilience plans
Untitled design The transatlantic relationship
Women Corona e1631700896969 500 Women and the coronavirus crisis
sere12 1 RE No. 12: Why No Economic Democracy in Sweden?

ILO advertisement

Global Wage Report 2022-23: The impact of inflation and COVID-19 on wages and purchasing power

The International Labour Organization's Global Wage Report is a key reference on wages and wage inequality for the academic community and policy-makers around the world.

This eighth edition of the report, The Impact of inflation and COVID-19 on wages and purchasing power, examines the evolution of real wages, giving a unique picture of wage trends globally and by region. The report includes evidence on how wages have evolved through the COVID-19 crisis as well as how the current inflationary context is biting into real wage growth in most regions of the world. The report shows that for the first time in the 21st century real wage growth has fallen to negative values while, at the same time, the gap between real productivity growth and real wage growth continues to widen.

The report analysis the evolution of the real total wage bill from 2019 to 2022 to show how its different components—employment, nominal wages and inflation—have changed during the COVID-19 crisis and, more recently, during the cost-of-living crisis. The decomposition of the total wage bill, and its evolution, is shown for all wage employees and distinguishes between women and men. The report also looks at changes in wage inequality and the gender pay gap to reveal how COVID-19 may have contributed to increasing income inequality in different regions of the world. Together, the empirical evidence in the report becomes the backbone of a policy discussion that could play a key role in a human-centred recovery from the different ongoing crises.


DOWNLOAD HERE

ETUI advertisement

The EU recovery strategy: a blueprint for a more Social Europe or a house of cards?

This new ETUI paper explores the European Union recovery strategy, with a focus on its potentially transformative aspects vis-à-vis European integration and its implications for the social dimension of the EU’s socio-economic governance. In particular, it reflects on whether the agreed measures provide sufficient safeguards against the spectre of austerity and whether these constitute steps away from treating social and labour policies as mere ‘variables’ of economic growth.


DOWNLOAD HERE

Eurofound advertisement

Eurofound webinar: Making telework work for everyone

Since 2020 more European workers and managers have enjoyed greater flexibility and autonomy in work and are reporting their preference for hybrid working. Also driven by technological developments and structural changes in employment, organisations are now integrating telework more permanently into their workplace.

To reflect on these shifts, on 6 December Eurofound researchers Oscar Vargas and John Hurley explored the challenges and opportunities of the surge in telework, as well as the overall growth of telework and teleworkable jobs in the EU and what this means for workers, managers, companies and policymakers.


WATCH THE WEBINAR HERE

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

The winter issue of the Progressive Post magazine from FEPS is out!

The sequence of recent catastrophes has thrust new words into our vocabulary—'polycrisis', for example, even 'permacrisis'. These challenges have multiple origins, reinforce each other and cannot be tackled individually. But could they also be opportunities for the EU?

This issue offers compelling analyses on the European health union, multilateralism and international co-operation, the state of the union, political alternatives to the narrative imposed by the right and much more!


DOWNLOAD HERE

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

The macroeconomic effects of re-applying the EU fiscal rules

Against the background of the European Commission's reform plans for the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP), this policy brief uses the macroeconometric multi-country model NiGEM to simulate the macroeconomic implications of the most relevant reform options from 2024 onwards. Next to a return to the existing and unreformed rules, the most prominent options include an expenditure rule linked to a debt anchor.

Our results for the euro area and its four biggest economies—France, Italy, Germany and Spain—indicate that returning to the rules of the SGP would lead to severe cuts in public spending, particularly if the SGP rules were interpreted as in the past. A more flexible interpretation would only somewhat ease the fiscal-adjustment burden. An expenditure rule along the lines of the European Fiscal Board would, however, not necessarily alleviate that burden in and of itself.

Our simulations show great care must be taken to specify the expenditure rule, such that fiscal consolidation is achieved in a growth-friendly way. Raising the debt ceiling to 90 per cent of gross domestic product and applying less demanding fiscal adjustments, as proposed by the IMK, would go a long way.


DOWNLOAD HERE

About Social Europe

Our Mission

Article Submission

Membership

Advertisements

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641

Social Europe Archives

Search Social Europe

Themes Archive

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

Ecology Archive

Follow us

RSS Feed

Follow us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Follow us on LinkedIn

Follow us on YouTube