Fighting against human trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation: The actions in Western Europe

Abstract

The article examines the initiatives developed by Western European States at the regional and national level to fight against human trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation, to prevent the phenomenon and to protect the victims. It evaluates the action conducted at the regional level by the Council of Europe: on one side the European Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings recently adopted under its auspices can be considered as a landmark achievement, being today the most advanced international treaty dealing with human trafficking worldwide, while on the other, as recognized by the European Court of Human Rights in Rantsev v. Cyprus and Russia, Article 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights prohibiting slavery, servitude and forced labour has to be interpreted "in the light of present-day conditions", so that trafficking in persons surely falls within its scope. At the national level, all the countries in Western Europe have specific legislation in place to fight against human trafficking and some of them have even recently adopted new laws affecting prostitution but directly aimed at fighting against sex trafficking. Therefore, the article concludes that Western European countries seem to be well equipped to fight against human trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation.