OSCE’s Special Representative: Human Trafficking an “apocalyptic” phenomenon

(Vatican Radio) The Special Representative and Coordinator of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)’s office for Combating Human Trafficking is expressing alarm over what she calls the “massive” scale of human trafficking. Maria Grazia Giammarinaro says up to 1.6 million people are “in forced labor, slavery and trafficked in central, South Eastern Europe, Eastern Europe and Central Asia (alone). So we’re talking about human rights violations of apocalyptic dimensions. There are twenty million people in forced labour and trafficking globally.”

Speaking to Vatican Radio’s Tracey McClure, Giammarinaro explains that trafficking is increasingly a phenomenon coming from poor areas to wealthier areas. “People in other words are trapped in a situation of dependency, abuse and exploitation” she notes. “Traffickers, criminal groups take advantage of their social vulnerability. Migrant workers are under tremendous economic pressure,” she says,” because they have to support their families so they end up sometimes in situations of abuse and exploitation, in slavery-like conditions.”

Giammarinaro describes some of the frightening cases of abuse and torture she has seen among victims of trafficking and explains that the OSCE and its partners are trying to combat trafficking at the source, through prevention programs aimed at poor local communities where people may be tempted to migrate to another country in search of a better future.

The OSCE supports one such program in Moldova, she explains, where young people in one boarding school-orphanage are given special courses and training to prepare them for the job market. These kids “are particularly at risk… they’re ready to migrate even in unsafe conditions and they lack basic life skills simply because they’ve lived in an institution all their lives.” The OSCE funds similar programs in the Balkans and countries in South Eastern Europe.

The OSCE Special Representative praises the work that Catholic institutions and individuals have been doing in the prevention of human trafficking, and their care and rehabilitation of victims. She points specifically to the example of Italian Sister Eugenia Bonetti who has long worked with women and girls trafficked from Nigeria for the sex trade in Europe.

But where are the weaknesses in the global fight against human trafficking? A former Italian judge, Giammarinaro says “there are many weaknesses unfortunately. One of the weaknesses is the criminal justice response. We have a number of criminal proceedings which are not commensurate with the scale of the phenomenon. We have more or less fifty thousand victims identified globally in the last year according to the trafficking in persons report of the U.S. State Department…”

“It is true that many criminal proceedings are carried out not for trafficking but for less serious crimes, so of course we are aware that there is much more going on than the figures reveal. But again, the problem is that an indictment for a less serious crime means a penalty that’s not really a deterrent.”

“What we have really to do is to be more effective in punishing traffickers because this in itself is a means to prevent trafficking. But above all, we have to go after the money. In every situation of organized crime, it is clear that money is the driving force of the crime. And if we seize and confiscate money, this is the best deterrent. “

Maria Grazia Giammarinaro received a Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Hero Award on 19 June 2012 from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to honour her significant contributions in the struggle to end modern-day slavery.

Listen to Tracey McClure’s full interview with Maria Grazia Giammarinaro: