Scottish Government

Trafficking in Human Beings: International Law

There are many International Treaties with relevance to Trafficking in Human Beings, including:

UN

• Slavery Convention
• International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
• Convention on the Rights of the Child
• Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography
• Convention against Transnational Organised Crime 2000 (UNTOC)
• Optional Protocol (to UNTOC) to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (Palermo Protocol)

International labour Organisation

• Conventions 29 and 105 on Forced Labour
• Convention 182 on Eliminating Worst Forms of Child Labour

Council of Europe

• European Convention on Human Rights
• Convention on Action Against Trafficking in Human Beings
• European Union Directive on preventing and combating trafficking in human beings and protecting its victims, and replacing Council Framework Decision 2002/629/JHA

The Palermo Protocol (Optional Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children to the UN Convention against Transnational Crime 2000) was the first international instrument to define and address the trafficking problem. The UK ratified the Palermo Protocol on 9th February 2006.

The purposes of the Palermo Protocol are:

• to prevent and combat trafficking in persons, paying particular attention to women and children;
• to protect and assist the victims of such trafficking, with full respect for their human rights; and
• to promote cooperation among States Parties in order to meet those objectives.

The Palermo Protocol defines the trafficking in human beings as

"the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring 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 labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs."