Various legal instruments such as the United Nations Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women, Convention on the Rights of the Child, and ILO Conventions have addressed human trafficking. However, in 2000, the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and its Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children were adopted. This instrument provides a consolidated approach to trafficking. The convention and the supplementary protocol were adopted in 2000 and entered into force three years later.
42 Egypt signed the Convention inDecember 2000 and the Protocol in May 2002; and ratified both in March2004. The purpose of the convention is to “promote cooperation to prevent and combat transnational organized crime more effectively.”52 It is also
significant because it offers definitions for contested terms that are essential in
understanding the types of crimes that this Convention targets and in identifying the type of criminals that this Convention seeks to combat.
The Convention defines an offence as transnational in nature if:
“(a) It is committed in more than one State; (b) It is committed in one State but a substantial part of its preparation, planning, direction or control takes place in another State; (c) It is committed in one State but involves an organized criminal group that engages in criminal activities in more than one State; or (d) It is committed in one State but has substantial effects in another State.” The Convention also lays down the
definition for an organized criminal group and states that it is a group which “shall mean a structured group of three or more persons, existing for a period of time and acting in concert with the aim of committing one or more serious crimes or offences established in accordance with this Convention, in order to obtain, directly or indirectly, a financial or other material benefit.”53
The Protocol goes in-depth regarding human trafficking as a transnational crime. The protocol identifies trafficking in persons as
“the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.”54
52 United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime 2000 53 Ibid.
43 The protocol also outlines the categories required to establish if a crime can fall under trafficking in persons. According to the protocol, for trafficking to be established, the crime must be composed of an action by a particular set of means, outlined in the convention, for the purpose of exploitation if the victim is an adult. As for the case of minors, or those who are under the age of 18, the crime is established if there is an action taken for the purpose of exploitation. Action includes recruitment, transportation,
transfer, harbor, or receipt. Means include threat or use of force, coercion, fraud,
abduction, and abuse of power, deception, abuse of vulnerability, or giving or receiving payment and benefits to achieve consent of a person having control over another person. Forms of exploitation vary and may include the following: forced labor or service,
slavery and similar forms, servitude, removal of organs, and prostitution or other forms of sexual exploitation.
The Protocol sets out a framework for protecting and assisting victims of
trafficking and requires the cooperation within and among States. The protocol dedicates a chapter to the protection of victims of trafficking. In this chapter, the protocol outlines the duties and responsibilities of signatory States in providing assistance and protection to victims of trafficking on their territory. To fulfill this objective, it explicitly defines the duties of States with regards to the status of victims in the receiving countries as well as their repatriation.
The protocol places emphasis on prevention, prosecution, and cooperation as significant pillars to the strategy for combating and preventing trafficking in persons. It
44 outlines provisions for information exchange and training, border measures, security and control documents, and the legitimacy and validity of documents. Such articles are present to emphasis the need for cooperation within and among States to effectively combat trafficking. Since the convention is concerned with transnational organized crimes, the protocol targets trafficking that is transnational and thus includes border and documentation measures.
It was not until the late 1990s that States began the tasks of separating trafficking from other practices from which it was commonly associated. It is important; however, that in many cases the distinction remains difficult to be made. Despite the fact that the international agreement on what constitutes ‘trafficking in persons’ is recent, there are
several articles in treaties older than the 2000 Protocol that include practices which are now labeled as trafficking. As a result, the following section explores the legal heritage that has influenced the formulation of the current legal framework on trafficking.