Considered one of the most serious crimes in the world and a serious violation of human rights, human trafficking is explicitly prohibited by the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (article 5).
The European Union has established a comprehensive legal and policy framework to address this phenomenon, in particular through the Directive 2011/36/EU and the EU strategy for the eradication of trafficking in human beings from 2012 to 2016.
The new Directive sets common minimum standards for determining offenses related to human trafficking and fixed the sanctions applicable throughout the European Union. Also it includes measures designed to strengthen the prevention of trafficking and victims protection.
The Directive entered into force on 15 April 2011 and had to be implemented in national legislation of the EU countries by April 6, 2013.
2014: Italy belatedly and partially implemented the European Directive
By Legislative Decree of March 4th, 2014 (n. 24), which came into force on March 28, 2014 Italy albeit belatedly transposed the European directive.
ASGI had taken part into the parliamentary debates by sending its observations, requesting amendments and additions to the draft decree presented by the Government, which had partially implemented (according to us) the Directive 2011/36/EU and also failed to implement, at least in an adequate and complete way, several provisions, some of which are of considerable importance.
If the Legislative Decree dated March 4th, 2014 (n. 24) cannot be yet considered satisfactory, as approved, it wasn’t even fully transposed by the Italian authorities in due time.
In fact, in the following months of the coming into force of the decree, the Italian government has approved the Anti Trafficking National Plan, which was supposed to be adopted by the end of June 2014. Moreover, the government failed to adopt measures that would have rendered possible the implementation of projects for the protection of victims.
The Italian government’s breach of international obligations – as noted by the Special Representative on Combating Trafficking in Human Beings in his OSCE Report, released after his visit to Italy and by the Group of Experts on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings of the Council of Europe (GRETA) which monitors the implementation by the States of the Warsaw Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings in its Report on Italy – shows complete disregard upon this crucial and most current topic which, according to the ASGI, is extremely worrying for the Italian Government.
2015 : Italy, exposed to the European Commission for violations of the Directive on trafficking in human beings
In light of the breaches and delays in the implementation of the approved standards, ASGI filed a complaint to the European Commission for breach of the rules pursuant to the Directive 2011/36/EU denouncing the alleged infringements with respect to numerous matters.
