Trafficking in human beings: Internet recruitment

In 2006 the Council of Europe Campaign to Combat Trafficking in Human Beings was launched under the slogan “Human being – Not for sale”. The Campaign also promoted the signature and ratification of the Convention. When drawing up the Convention, the drafters looked at use of new information technologies in trafficking in human beings and decided that the Convention’s definition of trafficking in human beings needs to include use of new information technologies. To further examine this aspect of trafficking the project on the Misuse of the Internet for the recruitment of victims of trafficking in human beings (2005/DG2/VC/405) was launched with aim to provide member states with appropriate legal, administrative and technical measures and more effective awareness raising. The project was funded by the Government of Monaco.
This study is one of the outputs of this project, and documents the various ways in which victims are recruited via the internet, and also – given the internet user boom – anticipate possible future techniques. Specifically, it:
– Lists the means used to recruit victims of trafficking via the Internet;
–Identifies the legal, judicial, administrative and technical means used by member states to combat this misuse of the Internet;
–Inventories best practices used to combat this misuse of the Internet;
–Makes recommendations on legal, judicial, administrative and technical means of combating use of the Internet to recruit victims
of trafficking in human beings.
The study is based on data collected via a questionnaire from 22 member states of the Council of Europe: Albania, Andorra, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, “the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia”, Germany, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Moldova, Montenegro, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The report also reflects the discussions at the Seminar on the Misuse of the Internet for the Recruitment of Victims of Trafficking in
Human beings, organised by the Gender Equality and Anti-Trafficking Division of the Council of Europe’s Directorate General of Human Rights and Legal Affairs, in Strasbourg on 7-8 June 2007.