Opening statement by State Secretary Kim Traavik

Seminar at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs 6 th May 2003

Curbing Trafficking in Women and Children – What Can Be Done ?

I take pleasure in welcoming you to this seminar, which we hope will be a productive one in terms of generating insights and ideas on measures to prevent, investigate and prosecute trafficking in human beings, as well as to stave off recruitment and assist those victimized by it.

We wish to cast light on the problem and to identify ways and means of getting to grips with it. We hope the discussions here today will generate new ideas or at least new ways of using old ones.

This is important to us. The fight against trafficking is a top priority of the Norwegian Government and of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

We in the Ministry, for our part, are in the process of drawing up a strategy for our contribution to the broad international efforts to curb trafficking in women and children, on the basis of the Government’s Plan of Action to Combat Trafficking in Women and Children.

The Plan of Action includes measures to protect and assist victims of trafficking; to prevent trafficking; and to detect and prosecute the organizers and those making illicit gains from of trafficking.

As many of you are aware, the Ministry will be chiefly responsible for the part of the implementation of the plan of action that will take place outside Norwegian territory.

The fact that we are taking a fresh look at our strategy for fighting the scourge of trafficking does not mean, of course, that we are starting from scratch. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been engaged in the issue of trafficking for many years.

We have been actively involved in international efforts to further develop and strengthen the normative basis for action aganist trafficking, in the context of the UN, the Council of Europe, the OSCE, and the Stability Pact for Southeastern Europe.

And we have instigated or supported a range of projects aiming to produce practical results, particularly but not exclusively in the Balkans.

We want the strategy which is now being drawn up to be as concrete, practical, and action-oriented as possible. Saying the right things about trafficking is important. Doing the right things is crucial.

The scope and complexity of the challenge can hardly be exaggerated. Dealing with this scourge will be time-consuming and costly. There will be many set-backs.

But there will also be successes. We have to believe that, given the necessary political will, resources, time, and internatiomnal cooperation, it will be possible to turn the tide of trafficking.

And even if it were to turn out that we will only be able to alleviate the suffering of a limited number of women and young girls, or young boys for that matter, we have a moral duty to act as forcefully as we can. It can be done.

Trafficking is happening every day, literally as we are speaking. But so is liberation of trafficking victims and detention of those responsible, although not as frequently as we would ideally like.

Trafficking is a heinous crime. It is morally reprehensible. It represents cynicism and callousness of an almost incomprehensible order. It feeds on the most vulnerable social and age groups. It is a particularly despicable violation of basic human rights, including the right to security and freedom from slavery, and – all too often – the right to life.

Trafficking has a corrosive effect not only on the societies in which victims of trafficking are recruited, but equally on the societies to which they are trafficked, including our own. It breeds contempt for human dignity. In the long run no society, however rich and prosperous, can live with that. Fighting trafficking, in other words, is in our own enlightened self-interest.

We hope this seminar will add to our knowledge and enhance our co-operation. We hope it will contribute to much-needed networking. And more specifically, we hope to gain insights that will allow us to develop routines for follow-up, return and repatriation of victims of trafficking that return to their home countries.

Assistance to and rehabilitation of victims who return to the countries of origin is one of the new measure in the Action Plan for which the Ministry is responsible, and one that we attach considerable importance to.

The cross-border and often regional nature of human trafficking makes international co-operation crucial.

We are confronting sophisticated international crime networks, who engage in human trafficking because huge profits can be gained with minimal risks.

The crime consortia are frequently well-endowed and in many cases better organized than the national law enforcement forces trying to curb their activities. And cooperation between organized crime in neighbouring countries is often much stronger than between police forces. Again, the Balkans is a case in point.

Hence, the fight against trafficking in women and children can not be successfully waged by national means alone. We need to intensify our co-operation, and we need to address all the links of the trafficking chain. In short, we need a holistic approach and broad international cooperation. It is gratifying to note that there appears to be growing awareness of this. But much more remains to be done.

Reliable quantitative data and statistics on trafficking are hard to come by, given the illicit and secret nature of these activities. But several recent estimates indicate that the problem is growing. And the links to organized international crime are becoming increasingly clear. Hundreds of thousands of women and children are duped or strong-armed into the commercial sex industry.

In spite of intensified national and international efforts, in other words, the number of human beings falling victim to exploitation, sexual abuse and servitude is still increasing. These women, and especially the children, are usually extremely vulnerable and rarely able to stand up for their rights.

Hence, it is primarily the responsibility of each state and government to protect the rights and security of women and children who are victims of trafficking or who are at the risk of becoming victims thereof.

And in this context it is important to bear in mind that trafficking is not only about prostitution and illegal immigration. It is that, too. But trafficking is also a serious human rights issue and a key part of the fight against international organized crime. In the latter sense trafficking is a security issue.

Trafficking in women and children must be addressed at national as well as international level, and with a broad range of ways and means. We need to address the demand that creates the market for trafficked women and children, and we need to give immediate assistance and protection to the victims.

It is crucial, however, above all to dry out the swamp of trafficking by curbing recruitment of women and children in the first place. This means that, in addition to dealing with the problem of trafficking as such, we also need to address its root causes: Poverty, social deprivation, lack of employment, and sub-standard educational opportunities.

We have our work cut out for us, in other words. Yet we must not despair. As the Chinese express it: Every journey begins with a first step.

Thank you for your attention.