EU Council formally adopts revised rules to combat trafficking in human beings
On 27 May 2024, the Council of the European Union adopted a directive that inter alia adds new forms of exploitation and considers knowingly using the service provided by a trafficking victim as a criminal offense. It also strengthens prevention measures as well as the support for and assistance to victims.
In December 2022, the European Commission issued a proposal for a Directive amending Directive 2011/36/EU on preventing and combating trafficking in human beings and protecting its victims. The proposal sought inter alia (i) to expand the non-exhaustive list of forms of exploitation explicitly mentioned in the Directive, (ii) to address the challenges posed by the increasing digitalisation of trafficking in human beings and to enhance the criminal law response to technology-facilitated offences, (iii) to enhance the criminal justice response to trafficking offences and (iv) to require Member States to collect and report to the Commission data on trafficking in human beings every year, and to further harmonise data collection.
On 27 May 2024, the Council of the European Union formally adopted the revised Directive, that inter alia:
- adds the exploitation of surrogacy, of forced marriage and of illegal adoption as forms of exploitation covered by the EU’s anti-trafficking law.
- considers knowingly using the service provided by a trafficking victim as a criminal offence that is punishable by effective, proportionate and dissuasive penalties.
- includes a new aggravating circumstance to take into account the amplifying effects of the dissemination of exploitative material, such as the dissemination of visual content of sexual nature involving the victim, through information and communication technologies (ICT).
- provides more severe sanctions for legal persons, such as companies, that is the exclusion from access to public funding and the withdrawal of permits and authorisations to pursue activities which have resulted in committing the offence.
- makes EU-wide data collection on trafficking in human beings based on specific indicators, mandatory.
The text will enter into force twenty days after its publication in the Official Journal of the EU. Member states will have up to two years to transpose the amended directive into national law.
For further details, please read the press release from the Council or from the European Commission.