The report of the MEP’s of the Left Group on the fight against human trafficking has been approved

 

24 April 2024, AKEL C.C. Press Office, Nicosia

The European Parliament yesterday adopted by a huge majority the report of the two MEPs of the Left Group on combating human trafficking in the EU and for providing better support for its victims.

Every year, 7,000 people in the EU, the vast majority of them girls, fall victim to human trafficking in its various forms – sexual exploitation, forced labour, organ trafficking and so on. With two female MEPs from the Left Group as Rapporteurs, Maline Björck from Sweden and Eugenia Rodriguez Palop from Spain, the European Parliament decided to revise the 2011 Directive by broadening its scope, strengthening the coordination of authorities across the EU to combat human trafficking and criminalising at an EU level other aspects of the phenomenon such as the exploitation of surrogacy.

It also introduces penalties for companies convicted of human trafficking, strengthens support for victims and their access to shelters, and enables judges to consider non-consensual dissemination of sexual images or videos (‘revenge pornography’) as an aggravating circumstance when imposing sentences on offenders.

This development is a milestone in the Europe-wide fight against human trafficking, which is cruel and torturous. This battle will continue until no human being is bought and sold in Europe and across the world.

AKEL welcomes this important success recorded by the Left MEP’s, which confirms the leading role played by the Left Group in the fight against gender violence and other forms of acute exploitation and violence against women and other vulnerable people.