Swiss National Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking 2023–2027

INTRODUCTION

Does human traf­fick­ing exist in Switzer­land? ‘Not that I know of’ or ‘no’ is usu­al­ly the reply, for peo- ple believe that in Switzer­land – an afflu­ent coun­try where the rule of law pre­vails – there is nei­ther the need nor the oppor­tu­ni­ty to traf­fic or exploit human beings. The real­i­ty is some­what dif­fer­ent, how­ev­er. Switzer­land is indeed affect­ed by human traf­fick­ing and there are huge prof­its to be made from it. How­ev­er, like every­where else, it takes place covert­ly and in dif­fer­ent forms, which is why it is so dif­fi­cult to detect, both by the pub­lic and law enforce­ment authorities.

Human traf­fick­ing is a crim­i­nal offence (Art. 182 SCC). It restricts vic­tims’ free­dom of choice and ac- tion, and pos­es a threat to their men­tal and phys­i­cal integri­ty. It is there­fore the respon­si­bil­i­ty of the law enforce­ment author­i­ties to iden­ti­fy and pros­e­cute the per­pe­tra­tors and to pro­tect the victims.

The Euro­pean Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has repeat­ed­ly ruled that human traf­fick­ing vio­lates the Euro­pean Con­ven­tion on Human Rights (ECHR). If a person’s human rights have been vio­lat­ed, the state con­cerned must mit­i­gate the harm. From this aris­es the oblig­a­tion of the state to iden­ti­fy in- stances of human traf­fick­ing and to ensure that vic­tims receive help.

Switzer­land has rat­i­fied var­i­ous inter­na­tion­al treaties to com­bat human traf­fick­ing, such as the Coun- cil of Europe Con­ven­tion on Action against Traf­fick­ing in Human Beings. The Con­ven­tion is of key im- por­tance to Switzer­land because it takes a vic­tim-cen­tred and human rights-based approach. The rec­om­men­da­tions of the Group of Experts on Action against Traf­fick­ing in Human Beings (GRETA), which mon­i­tors the imple­men­ta­tion of the Con­ven­tion, have had a sig­nif­i­cant impact on Switzer- land’s anti-traf­fick­ing efforts in recent years.

Switzer­land takes a mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary approach to fight­ing human traf­fick­ing. The approach is based on four pil­lars: pre­ven­tion, pros­e­cu­tion, vic­tim pro­tec­tion and coop­er­a­tion. Fol­low­ing inter­na­tion­al ‘best prac­tices’, Switzer­land has been devel­op­ing nation­al action plans (NAPs) since 2011. These NAPs con­tain effec­tive mea­sures that are imple­ment­ed by stake­hold­ers at all three lev­els of gov­ern- ment.

An impor­tant start­ing point for this lat­est NAP – Switzerland’s third – was the eval­u­a­tion of the 2017- 2020 NAP.1 The aim of the eval­u­a­tion was to assess how well the pre­vi­ous NAP had been imple- ment­ed and to opti­mise anti-human traf­fick­ing measures.

The 2023–2027 NAP cre­ates a com­mon under­stand­ing of com­bat­ing human traf­fick­ing in Switzer­land and the roles of gov­ern­ment bod­ies and civ­il soci­ety. It is a tes­ta­ment to Switzerland’s com­mit­ment to con­tin­ue and strength­en its whole sys­tem approach, which is aimed at bring­ing per­pe­tra­tors – male and female – to jus­tice and at bet­ter pro­tect­ing victims.

This doc­u­ment presents Switzerland’s strat­e­gy and frame­work for action in the com­ing years in an open and trans­par­ent man­ner. Our politi­cians reg­u­lar­ly sub­mit motions2 demand­ing improve­ments in com­bat­ing human traf­fick­ing: this NAP is a response to their concerns.