On World Day Against Trafficking in Persons, UN asks law enforcement to step up

MARSEILLE, France (CN) — On Wednesday, the U.N. World Day Against Trafficking in Persons is spotlighting the role of law enforcement agencies and the wider criminal justice system in dismantling trafficking networks.

“Despite some progress, criminal justice responses fall short in tackling this rapidly evolving crime,” the U.N. wrote in a statement online. “To end human trafficking, law enforcement must enforce strict laws, conduct proactive investigations, strengthen cross-border cooperation, target criminal finances, and leverage technology to identify and dismantle trafficking networks.”

There are various factors, stemming from both victims and legal frameworks, that can often make this easier said than done. In France, experts recount how once a victim decides to take legal action — an emotional and often tedious decision-making process in itself — there often remains judicial nuance when the victims were committing crimes under force.

Christophe Perugini, a department head at the Acting for Social Bonds and Citizenship association that supports and protects victims of human trafficking primarily around the French Riviera, broke this down for Courthouse News.

“What we see recurring and becoming a phenomenon is young adults being implicated in cases where they are the perpetrators of crimes or offenses, but under the guise of their exploitation,” Perugini explained. “We have networks that are sufficiently organized and multidimensional today to both force them to commit offenses and therefore to be implicated in drug cases, in pimping cases, since we have victims who also become perpetrators.”

In 2024, six people were tried at the Paris Criminal Court in the high-profile Trocadéro trial. The name refers to the open esplanade facing the Eiffel Tower, which draws in millions of tourists every year for prime photo ops. People selling inexpensive souvenir trinkets are commonplace, despite the police often showing up to scare them off.

The people on trial were charged with human trafficking, receiving stolen goods and trafficking in medicines and narcotics for giving children drugs before instructing them to steal from tourists and nedarby businesses. They all were sentenced with jail time ranging from one to six years, fines and an order to pay roughly $23,000 to each of the minors. Some were further banned from remaining on French territory.

“The French justice system has finally recognized that these young people were in fact victims of human trafficking, and in this respect, it sets a precedent,” Céline Olive, a mission manager at the Acting for Social Bonds and Citizenship Association, told Courthouse News. “So we’re still faltering on this subject, but it’s starting to evolve at the level of the justice system.… But it remains complicated, whatever the form of trafficking, in all cases, to have acts of trafficking recognized.”

Geneviève Colas, the founder of the activist collective Together Against Human Trafficking that unites 28 associations, told Courthouse News that every year, groups provide individual support to at least 4,000 trafficking victims, though she said that there are surely many more people that haven’t come forward. She echoed the urgency of addressing the phenomenon of recruiting young people to commit crimes.

“If we also talk about today, we’ll say that it’s particularly important to focus on … people who commit crimes, because more and more young children are being exploited to commit crimes or offenses, and this is something that particularly concerns us today,” she said. “The legal assistance that can be provided is very important for us. … A person needs to be recognized at some point as a victim, and to be compensated in order to move on, generally speaking.”

France has certain measures in place to encourage victims to come forward; if foreign nationals are trafficked into prostitution and go to court, they can apply for asylum and obtain a legal residency permit. There are also resources for emergency housing and increased security.

“I even had a client who was able to benefit from a name change for her safety, so that she could start a new life without being caught up in the network she was initially exploited in,” Loïc Roccaro, a lawyer who often defends human trafficking victims, told Courthouse News.

Roccaro urges the justice system to recognize the scale of this issue and implement more training procedures to combat it.

“There need to be more judicial responses that truly take into account the scale of this phenomenon. Then, in terms of challenges, it’s the training of investigators, the training of judges, that more units be assigned to handle these cases,” he explained. “[Another challenge] is supporting victims, in fact, everything depends on that.”

In 2023, the U.S. Department of State issued a report on human trafficking in France that said funding for victim assistance was generally insufficient, while “compensation and restitution for victims remained extremely rare.” It also cited the issue of minors being trafficked into committing crimes.

“Law enforcement authorities continued to arrest and prosecute child victims of forced begging and forced criminality and deport undocumented migrants from Mayotte, an overseas French department, without screening for trafficking indicators,” the report said. “Furthermore, the government again did not take effective steps to address the 3,000 to 4,000 unaccompanied Comorian children at risk for trafficking in Mayotte.”

Roccaro explained that there’s still a ways to go with how human trafficking cases are handled in French courts; they’re usually tried in correctional courts, rarely criminal ones.

“There’s a need to raise greater awareness among public authorities,” he said. “There are people who suffer from it, who are imported in appalling conditions — either on boats or road convoys — in short, there’s a logic that is appalling that the public authorities absolutely must fight against.”

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