The International Organization for Migration is honoured by the
opportunity to address this panel on the protection of victims and
prosecution of their traffickers, and wishes to extend its thanks
to the President of the General Assembly for convening this
important event. Today I will confine my remarks to the issue of
protection.

When IOM first began working in the area of counter-trafficking
in South Eastern Europe in the mid-1990's, little was known about
this modern-day form of slavery; there were few actors, and little
action. It was an environment that asked us to suggest and often
deliver a comprehensive set of activities, including victim
protection. Fifteen years later, I can say that it has been an
immense privilege to have been involved in this work, and I am
especially proud to say that we have offered protection to more
than 15,000 trafficked persons around the world. In the course of
this experience, we have learned many lessons about victim
protection in the trafficking context. While some of these are
summarized in the IOM Handbook on Direct Assistance to Victims of
Trafficking, others, we continue to refine, and it is some of these
lessons which I would like to share with you today.

Lessons in Protection

As we are all aware, trafficking in persons is part of a much
larger narrative, a narrative we read almost daily in the arrivals
of people at Lampedusa, the Canary Islands, Beitbridge, the Rio
Grande, or on the Yemeni coast; all of whom hope to make even a
meager living away from home. Despite the well-publicized risks of
mishap along the way, and the deaths of thousands, the boats and
trucks keep coming. How many of these individuals are being
smuggled? How many of them are being trafficked? These are
questions we are often asked, but for which there is no easy
answer. It is in the peculiar nature of trafficking, in which the
exploitation outcome is the defining component, that the answer to
the question is most often determined.

Lessons in Protection for IOM

The challenge of distinguishing trafficked persons from smuggled
migrants, or from migrants who are exploited, is one that is faced
daily by IOM's counter-trafficking staff. It has been the
experience of this Organization that, from the migration
perspective, the line that separates a trafficked person from an
exploited migrant is blurred at best, and we routinely ask
ourselves the same broad questions when attempting to determine a
case of trafficking in persons:

• What are the critical differences between a trafficked person
  and an exploited migrant?
• Is movement an essential component of trafficking? If so, how
  far does someone need to have been moved? If not, how does one
  distinguish between a trafficked person and anyone who has been
  exploited?
• How relevant to a positive identification of trafficking is the
  involvement of an organized criminal group in the process?
• Is the test for exploitation an objective or subjective
  test?
• What degree of difference must exist between the nature and
  conditions of the work that was promised and the nature and
  conditions of the work that was performed?

My friends, in the field, the lines we draw between trafficked
persons, exploited migrants, and smuggled migrants who may, or may
not, be destined for exploitation, can be exceptionally fine. And
so I would like to ask what may appear to be a naïve question:
While distinguishing between these different migrant categories
clearly has important implications in terms of criminal
prosecution, why should it matter in terms of protection? At the
moment, to positively define one person as a victim of trafficking
means that he or she may be eligible for reflection delays, safe
accommodation, psychosocial support and a raft of other forms of
assistance now available. But a migrant – especially if he is
young, male and working illegally and therefore doesn't fit our
stereotype of a victim – is unlikely even to be screened for
possible trafficking and/or exploitation. How logical is this
– to base such a disproportionate response on the fine and
imperfect lines between a smuggled migrant, a stranded migrant, an
exploited migrant, or a trafficked person? Is it not more
reasonable to base our response on the degree of need?

As such, our IOM offices are increasingly focusing on
identifying and responding to the needs of individual migrants,
whether trafficked, exploited, or highly vulnerable to
exploitation, like unaccompanied migrant children. We believe that
this approach will allow us to focus our energies and resources
more appropriately on responding to the specifics and severity of
the exploitation suffered by migrants, regardless of their
sub-categories. It is an approach that states may also wish to
consider, but the issue of protection raises other questions for
states as well.

Lessons in Protection for Developing States

In the course of our experience, we have learned that developing
states, in particular, need to do more to demonstrate true
leadership in the field of protection. And this leadership can
start at home, by challenging those trafficking-like practices
which have been with us for so long that we have often forgotten
their origins – practices we tend to describe as
'traditional', as if this label is enough to shield them from
scrutiny or criticism. On my own continent, for example, we have a
longstanding practice of sending children from rural villages to
live with more affluent relatives. We call it 'confiage', and its
traditional aim was to provide the child with educational or
training opportunities which s/he would not have at home; and yes,
the child would be expected to help out with household chores as a
member of the host family.

But times have changed. What used to be a displacement of tens
of kilometres is often today a displacement of 100s or even 1000s
of kilometres; enough to eliminate the monitoring role the natural
family once played in ensuring the best interests of their child.
What used to be a host family composed of relatives, who would have
a personal interest in the well being of the child, is today a host
family composed of strangers, who often do not. What used to be an
opportunity to go to school or learn a trade is often today nothing
more than a false promise to lure young girls into domestic
servitude at the expense of their education, or young boys into the
agricultural or fishing industries where their smaller hands are
most useful for cleaning grain or mending nets.

But these are modern, not traditional, practices, and where
recruitment occurs to displace a child into an environment in which
she is denied her basic rights to education so that her labour can
be exploited more completely, this is not in 'the best interests of
the child' we have all committed to ensure. It is child
trafficking, and we need to acknowledge this and put our houses in
order. And let it be said that this is not the only
trafficking-like, so-called, traditional practice that persists in
mutated form in the developing world. Forced marriage, and
variations and permutations of bonded and forced labour remain
common in many of our countries under the protective blanket of
so-called traditional, and therefore supposedly untouchable,
practices. Some of you have been speaking out against these, and
here I would like to congratulate and encourage you in this
leadership role.

Lessons in Protection for Developed States

We have learned that developed countries are not yet fully
developed when it comes to the fight against trafficking in
persons. Yes, most of you have, by now, specific national
legislation, which saves trafficked persons from summary
deportation and offers conditional access to safe accommodation,
psychosocial and medical support, and a range of other assistance
opportunities, and yes, a number of you have poured millions of
dollars into victim protection around the world, and for all of
this leadership you deserve recognition, and our thanks. But as
important as these initiatives are, they may someday seem only
tentative first steps on a long and difficult road.

I have spoken briefly about the traditional practices of the
developing world, but the developed world also has its
'traditional', and therefore supposedly untouchable, practices. The
most obvious is perhaps the selective application of labour laws to
certain sectors, such as agriculture. We hear too many stories
about migrant workers who run a gauntlet in crossing borders to
work in labour intensive sectors for wages well below the minimum
required by law, often to be denied even these by unscrupulous
employers who instead conspire to arrange their deportation when
they are no longer needed. At the risk of being impolitic, let us
not confuse the issue by calling it an immigration problem; this is
primarily a problem of exploitation, and yet the victims of these
scenarios are generally more likely to be penalised for their
immigration violations than are the employers who profit from
illegally cheap, or even free, labour. Why are labour laws not
being strictly enforced? Why are labour inspectorates routinely
under capacitated? Is it because some sectors have always
flourished on the backs of an exploited work force – whether
slavery, exploitative sharecropping or bonded labour arrangements,
or the overworked and underpaid labour provided by irregular
migrants? Are these the traditional practices that the developed
world can not live without? How much would it would cost –
economically and politically – to enforce existing labour
laws in sectors vulnerable to these kinds of practices? Is the
price too high?

Let me conclude today by saying that the fight against
trafficking in persons is far from over. We have already done a
great deal of good work together, but if we are ever to be able to
eliminate trafficking in persons, we will have to free victims from
the fear of telling their stories. The only way we will be able to
free victims from fear is to ensure that they are protected. And
the only way we will be able to ensure they are protected is to
begin addressing the broader issues of exploitation that we find in
all of our societies.

Thank you.