Exec­u­tive Sum­ma­ry
Since the sec­ond eval­u­a­tion round of the imple­men­ta­tion of the Coun­cil of Europe Con­ven­tion on Action against Traf­fick­ing in Human Beings, Bel­gium has con­tin­ued to devel­op the leg­isla­tive and pol­i­cy frame­work rel­e­vant to action against traf­fick­ing in human beings. The fourth Nation­al Action Plan for pre­vent­ing and com­bat­ing Traf­fick­ing in human beings, cov­er­ing the peri­od 2021–2025, was adopt­ed in June 2021. The Fed­er­al Migra­tion Cen­tre (MYRIA) con­tin­ues to act as an inde­pen­dent nation­al rap­por­teur. GRETA wel­comes MYR­I­A’s detailed and com­pre­hen­sive reports as an impor­tant instru­ment for research and action in the field of traf­fick­ing in human beings.
Bel­gium remains pri­mar­i­ly a coun­try of des­ti­na­tion for vic­tims of human traf­fick­ing, but it is also a coun­try of ori­gin and tran­sit. Accord­ing to data pro­vid­ed by MYRIA, the num­ber of vic­tims of traf­fick­ing receiv­ing sup­port from spe­cialised recep­tion cen­tres was 120 in 2017, 122 in 2018, 145 in 2019 and 88 in 2020. The major­i­ty of vic­tims were men traf­ficked for the pur­pose of eco­nom­ic exploita­tion. The sec­ond most com­mon type of exploita­tion was sex­u­al exploita­tion, which main­ly affects women.
The focus of the third eval­u­a­tion round of the Con­ven­tion being on traf­fick­ing vic­tims’ access to jus­tice and effec­tive reme­dies, the report analy­ses in detail the imple­men­ta­tion of pro­vi­sions of the Con­ven­tion estab­lish­ing sub­stan­tive and pro­ce­dur­al oblig­a­tions rel­e­vant to this top­ic.
In Bel­gium, pre­sumed vic­tims of traf­fick­ing are informed about their rights through a leaflet, which is avail­able in 28 lan­guages and writ­ten in an acces­si­ble lan­guage, but which does not men­tion all the rights of the vic­tims. GRETA con­sid­ers that the Bel­gian author­i­ties should strength­en the pro­vi­sion of infor­ma­tion to pre­sumed vic­tims of traf­fick­ing con­cern­ing their rights as soon as they are detect­ed and regard­less of whether they decide to approach a spe­cialised recep­tion cen­tre.
Access to legal aid for vic­tims of traf­fick­ing is sub­ject to very restric­tive eli­gi­bil­i­ty cri­te­ria. One of the cri­te­ria is the lack of finan­cial resources, which should be main­tained through­out the pro­ceed­ings. The thresh­old for obtain­ing legal aid is low­er than the min­i­mum wage and excludes, in prac­tice, all vic­tims who work or find a job dur­ing the pro­ceed­ings. GRETA urges the Bel­gian author­i­ties to take fur­ther mea­sures to ensure access to jus­tice for vic­tims of traf­fick­ing and, in par­tic­u­lar, to revise and sim­pli­fy the eli­gi­bil­i­ty cri­te­ria for access to legal aid.
While wel­com­ing the avail­abil­i­ty of legal reme­dies to claim com­pen­sa­tion, GRETA is con­cerned about the lim­it­ed num­ber of vic­tims who have obtained com­pen­sa­tion. GRETA urges the Bel­gian author­i­ties to take addi­tion­al mea­sures to guar­an­tee effec­tive access to com­pen­sa­tion for vic­tims of traf­fick­ing, and in par­tic­u­lar to facil­i­tate access to legal aid and to review the cri­te­ria for access to the Finan­cial Aid Fund for Vic­tims of Inten­tion­al acts of Vio­lence.
The num­ber of inves­ti­ga­tions and pros­e­cu­tions in human traf­fick­ing cas­es has increased since 2017. The Finan­cial Intel­li­gence Pro­cess­ing Unit (CTIF) has referred to the judi­cial author­i­ties sev­er­al cas­es relat­ed to human traf­fick­ing, demon­strat­ing a key role in con­duct­ing effec­tive finan­cial inves­ti­ga­tions. How­ev­er, law enforce­ment offi­cials met by GRETA dur­ing the vis­it expressed great frus­tra­tion over the lack of staff and the impact on the pos­si­bil­i­ty to car­ry out proac­tive and effec­tive inves­ti­ga­tions. GRETA urges the Bel­gian author­i­ties to allo­cate suf­fi­cient human and bud­getary resources to the police forces.
GRETA wel­comes the adop­tion of the law of 22 May 2019, which recog­nised in the Bel­gian Crim­i­nal Code the prin­ci­ple of non-pun­ish­ment of vic­tims of traf­fick­ing for their involve­ment in unlaw­ful activ­i­ties, to the extent that they were com­pelled to do so. How­ev­er, GRETA con­sid­ers that the author­i­ties should take fur­ther steps to ensure the prac­ti­cal imple­men­ta­tion of the non-pun­ish­ment pro­vi­sion, in par­tic­u­lar with regard to minor vic­tims of traf­fick­ing for the offences they were forced to commit.