“Fighting Trafficking in Children”
Side event (ILO, UNHCR, UNICEF, IOM)
UN, Conference Room 4, 10 May 2002, 10:00 a.m.
STATEMENT
Distinguished Panelists,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The very fact that several international organizations – International Labor Organization, UN High Commission for Refugees, UNICEF, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and International Organization for Migration – joined hands to co-sponsor this event illustrates the importance of the subject in the context of the Special Session of the UN General Assembly on Children.
Trafficking in human beings is one of the most alarming forms of irregular and forced migration involving cross–border collusion of organized criminal gangs. The threat becomes even more serious when it involves the most vulnerable segment of the population: our children.
The region that I come from has been particularly hard hit by this phenomenon. Romania was caught in the middle of two major sources of trafficking: the armed conflict in the former Yugoslavia that provoked big displacements of people and the amplification of the criminal activities under the circumstances of the general decline of the authority of the state institutions; the intensification of the migratory waves of people coming from the East and the Middle East and of the trafficking network of drugs, arms and human beings through our region as a transit corridor to the Western Europe. Moreover, we have our own share of hoods and profiteers.
Considering the magnitude of the problem we had to deal with it seriously and responsibly. In the past two years especially, the Romanian Government has taken decisive steps to fight trafficking in human beings, children in particular, in close partnership with the International Organization for Migration and the civil society. The authorities developed a National Counter-Trafficking Plan of Action, which has now become operational.
In the spirit of the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, comprehensive anti-trafficking legislation was enacted last autumn, to be effectively complemented by a witness protection act later this year.
Fighting trafficking in children is a complex process requiring an integrated approach and involving coordinated action by several government agencies, educational, health, police and judicial authorities and, not least, committed NGO’s. The aim is to build awareness, assist the victims and enforce the law.
Because of the complex ramifications of the problem we also need to secure the broadest international cooperation possible. The Regional Center for Combating Trans-Border Crime – SECI – in which eleven countries are represented and which has its headquarters in Bucharest has already established an impressive record of performance.
No criminal activity specifically targeting children as victims should go unpunished. The New Yorkers’ logo of “zero tolerance” toward crime must become a universal rule when it comes to trafficking in children.
We are determined to continue our efforts and to extend and strengthen the regional cooperation in order to increase our efficiency in combating the traffic in human beings, in general, and in children, in particular.+