COUNCIL OF EUROPE: free online Human Trafficking course

A free online course on human traf­fick­ing has been devel­oped by the Euro­pean Pro­gramme for Human Rights Educa­tion for Legal Profes­sion­als (HELP) of the Coun­cil of Europe.

https://www.coe.int/en/web/anti-human-trafficking/help-online-training-course

The course is designed to equip judges, pros­e­cu­tors, lawyers, law enforce­ment offi­cials and oth­er pro­fes­sion­als to effec­tive­ly apply the stan­dards devel­oped under the Coun­cil of Europe Con­ven­tion on Action against Traf­fick­ing in Human Beings in their dai­ly work. It is built up from a human-rights per­spec­tive and focus­es on vic­tim protection.

The course con­sists of nine sub­stan­tive modules:

1. Intro­duc­tion and legal framework
2. Def­i­n­i­tions and legal concepts
3. Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of vic­tims of human trafficking
4. Assis­tance for vic­tims of human trafficking
5. The non-pun­ish­ment principle
6. Inves­ti­ga­tion, pros­e­cu­tion and vic­tims’ rights
7. Sen­tenc­ing
8. Com­pen­sa­tion for vic­tims of human trafficking
9. Return and repatriation

These top­ics are explored by using pre­sen­ta­tions, inter­ac­tive screens, knowl­edge tests and reflec­tive exercises.

About us

The Euro­pean Pro­gramme for Human Rights Edu­ca­tion for Legal Pro­fes­sion­als (HELP) sup­ports the Coun­cil of Europe (CoE) mem­ber states in imple­ment­ing the Euro­pean Con­ven­tion on Human Rights (ECHR) at the nation­al level.

Wel­come to the HELP course on Com­bat­ing traf­fick­ing in Human Beings

This free online course has been devel­oped by the Euro­pean Pro­gramme for Human Rights Edu­ca­tion for Legal Pro­fes­sion­als “HELP” of the Coun­cil of Europe, using the HELP methodology.

The traf­fick­ing of human beings is a seri­ous crime, rep­re­sent­ing a grave vio­la­tion of human rights and an attack on the fun­da­men­tal val­ues of a demo­c­ra­t­ic soci­ety. Affect­ing thou­sands of vic­tims every year, traf­fick­ing treats human beings as a com­mod­i­ty to be bought, sold, and sub­ject­ed to forced labour. While most iden­ti­fied vic­tims of traf­fick­ing are women, men too can be vic­tims. Fur­ther­more, many of the vic­tims are children.

This course looks at the Coun­cil of Europe Con­ven­tion on Action against Traf­fick­ing in Human Beings. In addi­tion to the crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion of traf­fick­ing, the Con­ven­tion places pos­i­tive oblig­a­tions on states to put in place effec­tive mea­sures to pre­vent human traf­fick­ing, to pro­tect the rights of vic­tims of human traf­fick­ing, and to engage in inter­na­tion­al co-oper­a­tion and co-oper­a­tion with civ­il soci­ety to these ends. Addi­tion­al­ly, the course explores the case law of the Euro­pean Court of Human Rights as well as oth­er inter­na­tion­al legal instru­ments and nation­al good prac­tices, focussing on the pro­tec­tion of the vic­tims of human trafficking.

The course explores top­ics in a prac­ti­cal way through pre­sen­ta­tions, inter­ac­tive screens, knowl­edge tests and reflec­tive exer­cis­es. It is designed to equip prac­ti­tion­ers with the abil­i­ty to effec­tive­ly apply the stan­dards devel­oped under the Coun­cil of Europe Con­ven­tion on Action against Traf­fick­ing in Human Beings (the CoE Con­ven­tion) in their dai­ly work.

The course con­sists of nine sub­stan­tive modules:

1. Intro­duc­tion and legal frame­work:the human traf­fick­ing prob­lem, the Coun­cil of Europe response, the CoE Con­ven­tion and its mon­i­tor­ing. 
2. Def­i­n­i­tions and legal con­cepts:the def­i­n­i­tions and legal con­cepts con­tained in the CoE Con­ven­tion and oth­er rel­e­vant inter­na­tion­al instru­ments. 
3. Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of vic­tims of human traf­fick­ing:the impor­tance of vic­tims’ iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, the States’ duty to iden­ti­fy vic­tims, the coop­er­a­tion with NGOs in vic­tims’ iden­ti­fi­ca­tion. 
4. Assis­tance for vic­tims of human traf­fick­ing:rights of vic­tims to assis­tance and sup­port and the relat­ed States’ oblig­a­tions, the effects of trau­ma and vic­tim­i­sa­tion on the phys­i­cal and men­tal health of vic­tims, min­i­mum stan­dards of care that States must pro­vide to the vic­tims, right to recovery/reflection peri­od and the rules for its appli­ca­tion, min­i­mum con­di­tions for grant­i­ng a tem­po­rary res­i­dence sta­tus to vic­tims of traf­fick­ing. 
5. The non-pun­ish­ment prin­ci­ple:  the legal nature and scope of the non-pun­ish­ment principle,the dif­fer­ence of its appli­ca­tion to children’s cas­es and to adult cas­es, the mean­ing of com­pul­sion, States’ oblig­a­tions to apply the prin­ci­ple. 
6. Inves­ti­ga­tion, Pros­e­cu­tion and vic­tims’ rights:the pecu­liar­i­ty of inves­ti­ga­tion and pros­e­cu­tion in human traf­fick­ing cas­es, the rel­e­vance of the pro­tec­tion and assis­tance of vic­tims and wit­ness­es, the rel­e­vance of seiz­ing and secur­ing assets from the outset.
7. Sen­tenc­ing:  cri­te­ria that should be tak­en into con­sid­er­a­tion when decid­ing on the sever­i­ty of sanc­tions: ret­ri­bu­tion, gen­er­al pre­ven­tion, spe­cial pre­ven­tion and reparation.
8. Com­pen­sa­tion for vic­tims of human traf­fick­ing:  the rel­e­vance of com­pen­sa­tion in human traf­fick­ing cas­es, the mate­r­i­al and imma­te­r­i­al dam­ages cov­ered by com­pen­sa­tion, the source of com­pen­sa­tion (the per­pe­tra­tor or the State).
9. Return and Repa­tri­a­tion:  inter­na­tion­al stan­dards, safe, dig­ni­fied and prefer­ably vol­un­tary return, require­ments for return­ing child vic­tims, the non-refoule­ment principle.

Please click on the SCORM pack­age below to launch the course in English.