Zemiology and Digital Drug Market
Invisible Victims II
Invisible Victims
The crime of trafficking in human beings is a serious global human rights violation and security threat. Yet it continues to thrive in our modern world. Numerous organizations and individuals are dedicated to combating trafficking in human beings and protecting victims, including UN organizations, international non-governmental organizations, national law enforcement agencies, victim protection services, experts with lived experience, and civil society organizations.
Through the collective work of all these actors, a wealth of knowledge and expertise has emerged to inform efforts to combat human trafficking. However, amid this commendable progress, a notable gap persists in our understanding of the intersection between human trafficking and individuals with physical, sensory, intellectual, and/or mental disabilities.
This is the case despite widespread evidence indicating the potential significance of this nexus, with far-reaching policy implications for prevention, prosecution of traffickers, and victim protection.
The OSCE 2021 Survey Report,1 for example, identified traffickers’ specifically targeting people with developmental/physical disabilities as an emerging trend; the Global Report on Trafficking in Persons 2020, published by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), found that in 10 per cent of the cases analysed in the report, mental, behavioural, or neurological disorders were among the vulnerabilities exploited by 1 Survey Report 2021 of Efforts to Implement OSCE Commitments and Recommended Actions to Combat Trafficking in Human Beings | OSCE.
Kari Johnstone OSCE Special Representative and Co-ordinator for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings traffickers. This highlights the urgent need for developing robust and concrete measures that address the unique challenges faced by persons with disabilities in the context of human trafficking.
This short paper provides an overview of the existing links between disability and trafficking in human beings, how persons living with disability are affected by trafficking, and to what extent legal standards, policy frameworks, and anti-trafficking measures integrate concerns associated with disabilities.
This analysis is approached from four distinct perspectives: disability as an enhanced vulnerability factor that traffickers target; disability as a feature of exploitation (e.g., forced begging, withholding or theft of social security benefits); disability as a result of trafficking and exploitation (e.g., physical injury, PTSD, dissociative disorders); and disability of trafficking survivors as a factor in accessing justice, protection, employment, health and rehabilitation services.
Finally, the paper presents a series of recommendations and potential strategies aimed at elevating awareness and prioritizing the disability dimension within efforts to combat human trafficking.
Civil Society
I hope this report will serve as a useful resource to foster much-needed dialogue regarding the nexus between disabilities and trafficking in human beings, and that it will assist policymakers, civil society, and the wider anti-trafficking community in developing targeted responses that address the unique needs and challenges faced by persons with disabilities who have been trafficked, and to assist their recovery with dignity.
both empirical research and self-reporting from trafficking survivors has created a growing awareness in the global community about the nexus between disability and human trafficking.
The links between disability and human trafficking are substantial and cannot be overlooked. In all OSCE participating States, solutions are urgently needed for protecting persons with disabilities from trafficking.
Those working in the field of combating human trafficking have long known that individuals with disabilities are more vulnerable to being trafficked. We are thus calling for increased protection of such persons.
Here I would also like to point out that we are also seeing cases of disability as the direct result of trafficking. This should be flagged as an emerging concern: disabilities, including permanent disabilities, that are the result of exposure to cycles of exploitation and re-exploitation, as well as the compacted trauma inflicted by such re-exploitation.
To prevent the trafficking of persons living with disabilities and to stop the re-exploitation of survivors, the focus must be broader that just crime prevention; it must also include the protection of human rights.
I recommend basing the protection of survivors of human trafficking with disabilities on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Disabled Persons. Disabilities resulting from trafficking and exploitation can be both mental and physical.
It is known that the higher the level of trauma a person has endured, the higher the levels of clinical symptomatology that person will present. Among trafficking survivors with disabilities, we see a prevalence of severe cases of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), dissociative disorders and comorbid pathology.
We must also recognize the link between these conditions and the development of physically debilitating diseases later in life. If survivors with disabilities have no accessible resources enabling their personal independence, they remain in a state of hypervigilance, fear, uncertainty, desperation and hopelessness.
This guarantees their vulnerability to re-exploitation. Moreover, the impact of complex trauma on their minds and bodies reduces their life expectancy – including the danger of suicide.
Trafficking survivors with disabilities face unacceptable standards of aftercare, as well as ongoing barriers to disability accessible housing, treatment, education and employment.
For survivors with disabilities who remain destitute, their only resource may be their own dreams. But trafficking survivors’ dreams are just wishes without plans. I urge the world to prioritize plans to ensure the human rights of survivors of human trafficking who live with disabilities.
A special thank you is due to the OSCE Office of the Special Representative and Co-ordinator for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings for fostering dialogue, undertaking research, and constructing a globally needed action plan on behalf of these resilient survivors of human trafficking.
Definitions of disability
The analysis in this paper is based on the commonly endorsed international definitions of disability and human trafficking. Persons living with disabilities are defined by the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) in a comprehensive manner.
“Persons with disabilities include those who have long-term physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairments which in interaction with various barriers may hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others. ”
This broad and inclusive definition encompasses a wide variety of disabilities that render persons living with these disabilities vulnerable to trafficking in human beings. According to the World Health Organization, an estimated 1.3 billion people – or 1 in 6 people worldwide – experience significant disability.
Trafficking in human beings is defined in Article 3 of the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime Supplementary Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons Especially Women and Children (hereafter the Palermo Protocol), adopted in 2000.6 This definition specifies that the crime of human trafficking is a process constituted by three distinct elements:
An act involving recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring, or receipt of persons; ƒ By means of threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person); ƒ For the purpose of exploitation.
Exploitation may take various forms, including sexual exploitation, forced labour, forced begging, organ removal, slavery, and slavery-like practices.
When an act is perpetrated by one of the means to get a victim into an exploitative situation, actual exploitation does not need to happen for a trafficking crime to have taken place (in other words, intent is sufficient even if the result did not occur – a key consideration for law enforcement and prosecution).
The trafficking of children is a process comprised of two distinct stages: the act and the purpose. The means element is not required to establish the crime of child trafficking. In other words, in the case of children no means at all, including coercion, deception or threat, are required to establish the victim status of a child.
Sensitivity to disability in the main applicable international legal instruments despite facing significant challenges, persons living with disabilities as an especially vulnerable group are mostly invisible in international legal standards on human trafficking.
However, various other international instruments contain provisions addressing the vulnerability of persons with disabilities and their non-discrimination, which are highly relevant for the prevention of human trafficking of persons with disabilities as well as for ensuring their protection, assistance and support.
The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) does not specifically refer to human trafficking, but it prohibits other forms of exploitation, violence and abuse.
Art. 6 of the CRPD recognizes the cumulative forms of discrimination that women with disabilities face and requires State Parties to take measures to ensure women’s full and equal enjoyment of their human rights.
In Art. 16, the Convention requires State Parties to put in place legislation and policies and to ensure that instances of exploitation, violence and abuse against persons with disabilities, including women and girls, are identified, investigated and prosecuted.
It also requires all appropriate measures to promote the physical, cognitive and psychological recovery, rehabilitation and social reintegration of persons with disabilities who have been victims of any form of exploitation, violence or abuse, including through the provision of protection services.
Human OSCE trafficking
Article 13 of the Convention emphasizes the importance of making necessary adjustments in legal proceedings to ensure that individuals with disabilities have fair and equal access to justice.
The UN Committee that supervises the implementation of the CRPD in its General Comment No. 3 on Women with Disabilities noted that “women with disabilities may be targeted for economic exploitation because of their impairment, which can in turn expose them to further violence.
For example, women with physical or visible impairments can be trafficked for the purpose of forced begging because it is believed that they may elicit a higher degree of public sympathy.”
The UN Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women ( CEDAW), in its General Recommendation No. 38 on Trafficking of Women and Girls in the Context of International Migration, makes specific references to trafficking of women and girls with disabilities.
It notes that sex- and gender-based discrimination, gender-based structural inequality and feminization of poverty are root causes of trafficking, and that women and girls with disabilities are at particular risk of trafficking.
In the context of the protection of victims and their access to services, CEDAW singles out women and girls with disabilities as a particularly vulnerable group in need of adequate assistance.
Art. 23 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child addresses the rights of children with disabilities, stating that a mentally or physically disabled child should enjoy a full and decent life in conditions that ensure dignity, promote self-reliance and facilitate the child’s active participation in the community.
In its General Comment No. 9 on the rights of children with disabilities, the Committee on the Rights of the Child noted that children with disabilities are particularly vulnerable to different forms of economic exploitation, including child labour, sexual exploitation and forced begging.
The Committee noted the special vulnerability of girls with disabilities, requesting State Parties to take extra measures to ensure their protection, access to all services and full inclusion in society.
The Palermo Protocol does not explicitly refer to disability but sets forth requirements on the protection of victims that are relevant to persons living with disabilities.
Art. 6 requires that State Parties shall consider implementing measures to provide for the physical, psychological and social recovery of victims of trafficking in persons, including, in appropriate cases, in co-operation with non-governmental organizations, other relevant organizations and other elements of civil society.
State Parties shall consider the provision
- Appropriate housing.
- Counselling and information, in particular with regard to legal rights, in a language that victims of human trafficking can understand.
- Medical, psychological and material assistance.
and d. Employment, educational and training opportunities. In taking these measures, the age, gender and special needs of victims of human trafficking, including appropriate housing, education and care, are to be considered.
Although the vulnerability of persons with disabilities to human trafficking is acknowledged in various documents, the provisions often remain insubstantial and fail to offer comprehensive strategies for effective responses.
At the same time, international and regional standards regarding trafficking in human beings occasionally recognize disability as a vulnerability and protection factor, but not unexpectedly, references to disability are often brief and general, or absent.
The EU Directive on preventing and combating trafficking in human beings and protecting its victims (2011)13 includes protection requirements for victims of human trafficking with special needs, including health, disability, physical or mental illness, but does not provide further details.
See, e.g., the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings (available here), which contains general non-discrimination provisions and takes a human rights-based approach to prevention policies and programmes and victim protection.
The role of “means”
OSCE The Palermo Protocol, which establishes the definition of trafficking in persons under international law, requires trafficking crimes involving adult victims to include three elements: the act, the means, and the purpose (Article 3-a). For children, the means are inherently irrelevant and thus, establishing the act and its purpose is sufficient in legal proceedings (Article 3-c).
As with any other child, this principle also extends to children with disabilities. In contrast, when addressing adults with disabilities, the relevance of means is contingent upon the type of disability and the individual’s capacity, since persons with disabilities cannot be treated as a homogenous group. Rather, considerations must be tailored to the specific circumstances of the individual.
Traffickers often raise a claim that a victim “consented” to their exploitation. However, the Palermo Protocol is explicit that “consent is irrelevant” when any of the means have been used, meaning a victim cannot consent to be compelled into exploitation (Article 3-b.).
The guilt or innocence of a trafficker is determined by the conduct of the offender, not the predisposition or acquiescence of an intended victim. What matters is whether the trafficker used one of the prohibited means.
The protocol does not specify the degree to which the means must be proven. However, national authorities should consider requiring the means be sufficient to compel a reasonable person with the same circumstances, background, and vulnerabilities as the victim. This is where disabilities should come into play.
A victim’s physical or intellectual disability may make them more vulnerable to force, fraud, coercion or abuse of position of vulnerability. The victim’s vulnerability should be considered in assessing the means used by the offender and be considered as an aggravating factor in sentencing.
The general term “disability” encompasses a wide variety of conditions that impact or limit a person’s physical, mental, or social well-being. Disabilities may be long-term or temporary; some disabilities are apparent at birth or become manifest during childhood, while others are acquired later in life as a result of physical trauma, illness or old age.
Some individuals have multiple disabilities. While some people with disabilities are largely self-sufficient and need minimal accommodations to manage daily life, many require varying degrees of assistance of one kind or another to engage in certain activities.
EU Directive
See also the ASEAN Convention Against Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (available here), which requires criminalization when an offence involves a victim who is particularly vulnerable, among other reasons, because of a physical or mental disability or condition.
EU Directive 2011/36/EU; available here. At the time of writing, a new Directive was under preparation. EU Directives are binding as to the result to be achieved in the EU Member States to which they are addressed (one, several or all of them), while leaving national authorities the power to choose the form and methods to achieve the result (Article 288 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union).
The EU Directive on establishing minimum standards on the rights, support and protection of victims of crime (2012) offers a general elaboration on the special needs of victims.
At the OSCE level, in the Document of the Moscow Meeting of the Conference on the Human Dimension of the CSCE (1991), participating States decided to ensure protection of the human rights of persons with disabilities (41.1), although no reference was made to trafficking in human beings.
In Decision No. 15/05 on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women (2005), participating States expressed concerns regarding the targeting or vulnerability of women and girls, and reiterated the need for protection of these groups, including women with disabilities.
The 2003 OSCE Action Plan to Combat Trafficking in Human Being does not refer to disability, although the 2013 Addendum requires special attention to, among others, children with disabilities in promoting targeted awareness-raising and public education.
In sum, in both international and regional standards on trafficking in human beings, linkages with disability are either general, of low visibility, or non-existent.
While it cannot be expected that high-level standards go into detail on specific vulnerabilities, this gap should be closed to ultimately improve prevention, protection and access to justice for people with disabilities.
Visibility of disability in justice systems
According to figures on human trafficking provided by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the abuse of vulnerability or a combination of abuse of vulnerability and deception was a recruitment element in 49% of the 249 court cases examined in its 2020 Global Report on Trafficking.
Physical disability (3%) and mental, behavioural or neurological disorders (10%) were among the vulnerabilities exploited by traffickers in these cases.
While it is likely that court cases are not an adequate indicator for the overall prevalence of abuse of disability by traffickers, these figures suggest that disability is a real and significant concern in the trafficking of human beings
A number of judicial cases were recently reviewed in two significant studies. A review of state and federal cases in the United States examined court cases.
The majority of these cases involved situations in which the disability was an intellectual disability (21 of the 35 identified cases) and of these, 14 involved sex trafficking
