Human Rights Coun­cil — A/HRC/50/33

Traf­fick­ing in per­sons in the agri­cul­ture sec­tor: human rights due dili­gence and sus­tain­able devel­op­ment – Inter­ac­tive dia­logue with the Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on traf­fick­ing in persons,
espe­cial­ly women and children

 

State­ment by Pro­fes­sor Michel Veuthey

Ambas­sador to mon­i­tor and com­bat traf­fick­ing in per­sons, Deputy Per­ma­nent Observ­er in Geneva
Gene­va, 21 June 2022

 

Mr. Pres­i­dent, Excellencies,

 

The Sov­er­eign Order of Mal­ta wish­es to express its thanks to the Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on traf­fick­ing in per­sons,

espe­cial­ly women and chil­dren, Siob­hán Mul­lal­ly. We would like to con­grat­u­late the Spe­cial Rap­por­teur and her team for their well-doc­u­ment­ed report (A/HRC/50/33) on “Traf­fick­ing in per­sons in the agri­cul­ture sec­tor: human rights due dili­gence and sus­tain­able devel­op­ment”.

The Order of Mal­ta would like to high­light the val­ue of the con­crete action of many reli­gious con­gre­ga­tions in the pro­tec­tion and reha­bil­i­ta­tion of vic­tims of human trafficking.

 

Allow me to briefly describe the Order of Mal­ta’s con­tri­bu­tion to the fight against human trafficking:

 

(1) Rais­ing awareness 

• Through its bilat­er­al (112 States) and mul­ti­lat­er­al diplo­mat­ic net­work, orga­niz­ing and par­tic­i­pat­ing in conferences

(2) Assist­ing vic­tims through med­ical and social programs 

• Through its Nation­al Asso­ci­a­tions and its world­wide human­i­tar­i­an orga­ni­za­tion “Mal­teser International”.
• With a pilot project in Lagos: “Bakhi­ta Cen­tre” with Sr Patri­cia Ebeg­bulem, SSL (Sis­ters of Saint Louis)
• Gath­er­ing and dis­sem­i­nat­ing good prac­tices on the site www.christusliberat.org

(3) Offer­ing a free online train­ing course for helpers (in Eng­lish and French on https://www.cuhd.org)

(4) Orga­niz­ing 20 webi­na­rs on human traf­fick­ing ( www.adlaudatosi.org ) with sub­ti­tles in sev­en lan­guages (Chi­nese, Eng­lish, French, Ger­man, Ital­ian, Russ­ian and Span­ish )

The Order of Mal­ta sup­ports the rec­om­men­da­tions of the Spe­cial Rap­por­teur call­ing upon Mem­ber States to rat­i­fy and imple­ment all rel­e­vant inter­na­tion­al and region­al human rights and labour rights stan­dards. The Order of Mal­ta wish­es that the impor­tant role of reli­gions and FBOs be men­tioned in their role in effec­tive­ly pre­vent­ing and address­ing con­tem­po­rary forms of slavery.

 

The Order of Mal­ta would wel­come an increased col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on pre­vent­ing and com­bat­ing traf­fick­ing in persons.

 

Thank you.