Implementación de Seguridad y Salud en el Trabajo

Counter-trafficking programmes have mushroomed in all the major economies of the world. These programmes have four common basic principles: strong legislation, prevention of trafficking, assistance to victims, and collaboration with international and regional parties. There is a need to develop comprehensive literature on all forms of trafficking so that anti-trafficking strategies can be developed that cater to the specific problem areas. The following are the main focus areas of anti-trafficking actions worldwide207:

(a) Legislation: All the countries that have ratified the Trafficking Protocol of the UN have either adopted new legislation or have modified their existing legislation to translate the protocol into action. This legislation now includes adefinition of trafficking in persons, increased penalties for traffickers, establishment of procedures and institutions for the implementation of the laws.

(b) Coordination and Collaboration: National governments are collaborating with each other for sharing information regarding trafficking activities. Coordination at national as well as regional level is gaining momentum. The presence of institutional structures such as national referral mechanisms, national rapporteurs, and national coordinators has facilitated the efforts of various agencies.

(c) Prosecution and Law Enforcement Activities: Distinguishing trafficking victims from others is still a serious challenge for law enforcement officials. Prompt identification and

206_{Global Slavery Index (2013), Ibid, Executive Summary at p.1}

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appropriate treatment of victims is essential for an effective law enforcement response to trafficking. However, there is confusion regarding trafficking, smuggling and other immigration related offences.

(d) Prevention: Preventing the trafficking requires comprehensive efforts from all the stakeholders, but this aspect has been inadequately addressed in anti-trafficking strategies. There is uncertainty regarding the effectiveness of various preventive techniques. Moreover, lack of monitoring and evaluation of prevention programmes has made it difficult to determine the success of each of them. There are numerous factors that are responsible for human trafficking. These factors include economic crisis, social exclusion, gender discrimination and a weak legal or social protection system. Preventive strategies can be a success if these root causes of trafficking are addressed appropriately.

(e) Protection and Assistance: International guidelines are now clear about the kind of protection and assistance that must be accorded to victims of trafficking upon their rescue. Assistance includes transfer to a safer place, providing services like physical and psychological care, legal assistance, shelter and protection. Different countries have adopted different methods of treating the victims. In most cases, victims of sexual exploitation are provided state help. There are shelter homes and children’s care centres that take care of such victims,but still steps for the assistance of other kinds of victims, such as victims of forced labour, domestic servitude, etc, are not covered by most of the existing assistance programmes.

2.8.2 Evaluation of Counter-trafficking Programmes

Evaluation of any programme can be undertaken by selecting anevaluation design, methods for data collection, and analysis of collected data. Knowledge about anti- trafficking programme effectiveness can be developed by tracking individual victims over time, learning from experience to reach the hidden populations of other fields and analysing the existing databases. As the anti-trafficking efforts continue, it is necessary to track the recent developments. Traffickers have always changed their strategies with changes in rules and regulations, such that their activities go on unhindered. It is necessary to analyse the implications of trafficking on a geographical basis to prioritise strategies for different regions. Coordination in the efforts of national and international actors is

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expected to improve the global situation of trafficking. The following evaluative measures are expected to prevent trafficking:

(a) Tracking Individual Victims over Time: Data collected from the victims can be made consistent and harmonised by including 1) demographic profiles of victims such as their nationality, ethnicity, gender, and age; 2) specific characteristics of victims such as prior education, prior employment, health, and prior income; 3) trafficking experience such as kind of exploitation (sexual or labour), trafficking route (source, transit and destination countries), mode of transport, work days per week and work hours per day, income and bondage; 4) intervention (arrested, detained, deported, repatriated, sheltered, released); and 5) follow-up in several impact areas.

(b) Learning from Experiences in Reaching Hidden Populations in Other Fields: Collecting data from elusive and hard to detect populations is always a challenge for the researchers. Significant insights can be generated regarding the data collection methods for human trafficking by analysing hidden population studies. One such study is that of homeless in the United States from which instructive lessons for human trafficking can be learned, particularly regarding the coercive labour practices of agricultural workers. Various sampling techniques like the use of decoys for data collection, and different variations of snowballing techniques can be employed. However, care must be taken that the confidentiality and privacy of victims is not compromised208.

(c) Gaining Knowledge from Existing Databases: There are global and national databases which have information about the profiles of victims of human trafficking. An analysis of these databases will help in refining the research design and target population. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) maintains an in-depth database of profiles of assisted victims from more than 80 since 1999. Data related to trafficking victims can also be collected from the reports of international organisations, non-government organisations and national statistical agencies. These reports can help in bridging the gap between the number of reported and unreported cases209.

208 _Ibid. 209 _Ibid.

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