A/HRC/44/45 — UN GENEVA Report on Trafficking in Persons, presented by Ms. Maria Grazia Giammarinaro, Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children

Accord­ing to the knowl­edge and expe­ri­ence gained dur­ing her tenure, the Spe­cial Rap­por­teur believes that pro­found changes are need­ed in the approach to anti-traf­fick­ing action. Esti­mates show that forced labour, includ­ing in the con­text of traf­fick­ing, is a mas­sive wide­spread phe­nom­e­non, involv­ing mil­lions of peo­ple. While sex­u­al exploita­tion, most­ly involv­ing women and girls, remains a sig­nif­i­cant pro­por­tion of all cas­es, labour exploita­tion prob­a­bly rep­re­sents the high­est per­cent­age of traf­fick­ing in per­sons. The scale of the prob­lem sug­gests that traf­fick­ing should be con­sid­ered first and fore­most a mat­ter of human rights and social jus­tice. Traf­ficked per­sons are in fact an enor­mous reserve of cheap labour or even unpaid labour, mis­used and vic­tim­ized for this pur­pose, while the pro­ceeds of their hard work enrich not only their traf­fick­ers, very often crim­i­nals, but also their final exploiters, very often well-estab­lished and respect­ed actors in the for­mal economy.

This is the rea­son why Gov­ern­ments should, as a mat­ter of pri­or­i­ty, address busi­ness­es with a col­lab­o­ra­tive approach, ask­ing for vol­un­tary ini­tia­tives in com­pli­ance with due dili­gence oblig­a­tions to respect human rights, and at the same time impose on cor­po­ra­tions basic oblig­a­tions to report on the actions they take, iden­ti­fy and min­i­mize risks, and pro­vide reme­dies for peo­ple sub­ject­ed to traf­fick­ing in their oper­a­tions, includ­ing their sup­ply chains. The agency of exploit­ed and traf­ficked per­sons should be pro­mot­ed and val­ued, by respect­ing their free­doms of assem­bly and asso­ci­a­tion and their rights to form or join trade unions, and by pro­vid­ing work­ers who denounce exploita­tion with viable and reg­u­lar alter­na­tive jobs, and res­i­dence sta­tus if needed.