The invisible battle against Human Trafficking – has our global legal framework succeeded so far?

In the world of international law, one of the most controversial topics to address today is surely the one of human trafficking. While being a reality unfortunately well known by both hemispheres, governments regularly fail to address it because of its “uncomfortable” nature. The topic of human trafficking is itself characterized by ambiguity and uncertainty.  Such limitations are inevitably enhanced by the nature of its victims, often belonging to marginalized groups of society: undocumented migrants or sex workers, as well as children coming from extremely poor households, dysfunctional families or those who are abandoned and have no parental care (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, s.d.). At an international level, one of the first sources of law addressing this topic is provided by the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (Palermo Protocol) – Art 3 (a) defines human trafficking as “ the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of persons through means like force, coercion, fraud, or deception…the purpose of exploitation ” ( General Assembly , 2000). From here, international law has developed various instruments to address human trafficking, particularly through criminal justice; nevertheless, it still lacks an effective positive and preventive approach. 

Since the mid 1990s, the international community has exponentially raised awareness around the phenomenon, seeking a regional and national coordination. 

In its 20 articles, the Palermo Protocol focuses on a so-called system of the “three Ps”, namely through Prevention, Protection and Prosecution.  The United Nations protocol was indeed successful in underlying the gravity of such phenomena, providing, overall, a comprehensive basis for the prosecution of human traffickers; for instance, it managed to determine the irrelevance of the victim’s consent when facing the threat or use of force, deception, coercion, and, especially, when in conditions of abuse of power. It cannot be deemed, however, that the Protocol was equally as successful when it comes to its system of victim protection. For instance, it misses laws that punish trafficking where victims accept work unknowingly through coercion tactics, thus limiting its scope of action. Moreover, the Palermo Protocol also fails to recognize a monitoring body, leaving governments to report their own progress whilst not subject to an official and systematic official evaluation. Anti-trafficking scholar Kristina Touzenis notes, “… the impetus for developing a new international instrument arose out of the desire of governments to create a tool to combat the enormous growth of transnational organized crime. Therefore, the drafters created a strong law enforcement tool with comparatively weak language on human rights protections and victim assistance.” (Touzenis, 2010; Gallagher, 2001).

 Nevertheless, on a European level, in 2005 the Council of Europe signed the Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings, which came into force only three years later. Differently from the Palermo protocol, the Convention introduced a human right based and victim centered approach and set up a monitoring mechanism to supervise its implementation by the 48 State Parties (Council of Europe, 2025). The latter is called GRETA, namely Group of Experts on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings, and it mostly publishes country reports evaluating legislative and other measures taken by Parties as means to give effect to the Convention. It also regularly publishes general reports on its activities; even though it lacks punitive powers, GRETA has thus a strong symbolic and political influence on its State parties. At the same time, GRETA does not eventually operate on a global level. A human rights approach has indeed been implemented also on an international level (eg Art. 6 CEDAW , Art 35 Convention on the Rights of the Child and Art. 6 American Convention on Human Rights), strengthening the necessity to give primacy to the rights of trafficked victims; however, this attempt has been characterized by lots of limitations. For example, the HR approach has in some way reinforced the idea that only the so called “genuine victims” of trafficking are worthy of international protection, thus stereotyping the victims of human trafficking as youthful , sexually pure defenseless, deceived… eventually ignoring victims such as sex workers or irregular migrants. In this regard, Dr J Srikantiah in her “Perfect Victims and Real Survivors: The Iconic Victim in Domestic Human Trafficking Law' (2007) Immigration & Nationality Law Review” suggests that in the real world ‘victims are not perfectly innocent, and perpetrators are not perfectly evil. (SRIKANTIAH, 2007).

Moreover, empirical research shows that many States and NGOs , while claiming to act in the name of human rights; however, empirical research (Haynes, 2007) shows that their interventions often violate the autonomy of victims and justify mass deportations. Overall, the human rights approach not only needs to improve its efficiency in terms of speed of action and global intervention, but it also should reconsider its inclusivity and impact on those that seeks to protect. 

At a national level, the UK represents one of the States that has been the most active when it comes to tackling the phenomena of human trafficking . In 2015 the country published a Modern Slavery Act, consolidating and creating new offenses related to slavery and human trafficking; as the UK government declares “The Modern Slavery Act will give law enforcement the tools to fight modern slavery, ensure perpetrators can receive suitably severe punishments for these appalling crimes and enhance support and protection for victims” (Home Office, 2014). Nevertheless just in 2021 GRETA published a report evaluating UK’s compliance with the Council of Europe’s 2005 Convention. Here the group identifies serious limitations in regard to the action taken by the English government; first of all, GRETA considers that the UK should improve its process of identification of human trafficking victims, as the number of prosecutions remains considerably lower than the number of identified victims. Most importantly, GRETA “considers that “they should ensure that effective co-ordination and information exchange exists among the different actors” as well as highlights limitations in the UK’s compensation and psychological assistance system towards the victims of human trafficking (GRETA , 2021). Similar critiques have also been addressed by the same GRETA and scholars to, respectively, the Italian and American legal framework against human trafficking, addressing their numerous inefficiencies, ranging from lengthy identification processes, narrow ‘victim’ definitions, limited access to legal aid and inadequate child support services (Valenti, 2024; Zimmerman, 2005).

In conclusion, while significant progress has been made in developing international and regional frameworks to combat human trafficking, the current system remains fragmented and often ineffective. Whilst it may be determined that the legislative basis is at least sufficient, evident lacks can be found when it comes to monitoring and victim support tactics. Although some national law responses to this phenomenon have surely been noteworthy, the necessity to evolve from a reactive into an effective, inclusive and preventive global legal framework shouldn’t be ultimately ignored. 

Bibliography

General Assembly . (2000). Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. United Nations.

Council of Europe. (2025, october 20). Action against Trafficking in Human Beings . Retrieved from Council of Europe Portal : https://www.coe.int/en/web/anti-human-trafficking 

Gallagher, A. (2001, November). Human rights and the new UN protocols on trafficking and migrant smuggling: A preliminary analysis. Human Rights Quarterly, 23(4), 975–1004. doi:10.1353/hrq.2001.0049

Goździak, E. M., & Vogel, K. M. (2020). Palermo at 20: A Retrospective and Prospective. Journal of Human Trafficking, 6(2), 109–118. https://doi.org/10.1080/23322705.2020.1690117

GRETA . (2021). EVALUATION REPORT UNITED KINGDOM Third Evaluation Round - Access to justice and effective remedies for victims of trafficking in human beings . Council of Europe .

Haynes, J. (2025). International human rights law’s complicity in status subordination: A postcolonial critique of treaty bodies’ engagement with human trafficking. Leiden Journal of International Law, 1–33. doi:10.1017/S0922156525100332

Home Office. (2014). Modern Slavery Act 2015. Retrieved from Gov. UK: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/modern-slavery-bill

Modern Slavery Act 2015, House of Commons and House of Lords (26 C.E.) (testimony of Theresa May & Lord Bates). https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/30

SRIKANTIAH, J. (2007). PERFECT VICTIMS AND REAL SURVIVORS: THE ICONIC VICTIM IN DOMESTIC HUMAN TRAFFICKING LAW. Boston Univesity Law Review .

Touzenis, K. (2010). Trafficking in human beings: Human rights and trans-national criminal law, developments in law and practices. Paris, France: UNESCO.

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. (n.d.). Human Trafficking FAQs. Retrieved from unodc.org: https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/human-trafficking/faqs.html#h3

Valenti, S. (2024). trafficking in human beings Council of Europe: GRETA publishes 2024 Report on human trafficking in Italy. Retrieved from Human Rights Center Antonio Papisca: https://unipd-centrodirittiumani.it/en/topics/council-of-europe-greta-publishes-2024-report-on-human-trafficking-in-italy

Zimmerman, Yvonne. (2005). Situating the Ninety-Nine: A Critique of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. Journal of Religion & Abuse. 7. 37-56. 10.1300/J154v07n03_03.