UNFPA Preventing and combating trafficking in women and girls Cristina Gomes

1. UNFPA Preventing and combating trafficking in women and girls Cristina Gomes Technical Adviser in Population and Development

2. Honourable President and Vice-MinistersColleagues and Friends • I am delighted to be here in New Orleans. And I want to thank you for inviting UNFPA to join you. • I would thanks to the organizers of this conference for convening this important workshop and bringing together Vice-Ministers and their teams to discuss efforts to combat the urgent issue of human trafficking. • Human trafficking is a global phenomenon, and women, young people and children are the largest reported groups of victims.

3. Trafficking of women and young people • Globalization facilities Expansion of communications and transportation Recruitment mechanisms and trafficking of workers • Imbalances and complementary gaps among countries Standard of living: poverty, social protection, resources Labour market opportunities and salary levels Demographic youth bonus and agingWomen and youth education, aspirations, migration and risks Lack of a gender and generational perspective in policies

4. Demography, education, labor market and salary gaps • Sending countries: • Demographic bonus of youth with a middle education, who are looking for job and better salaries • Unproductive and undiversified labour markets with low salaries • Lack in policies to generate productive employment for youth with middle education • Receiving countries: • Demographic deficit of youth • Population aging process and proportions of youth decrease • Youth have a higher education and aspirations • Diversified labour market where low skilled native workers have information and job alternatives to increase their opportunities and salary • Demand of unskilled workers

5. Women and youth education, aspirations, migration and risks Sending countries: • Improving women’s education and aspirations • Increasing women’s participation in migration flows • Lack of gender perspective in policies • Today women migrate not only to reunite with their spouses, but they migrate alone to work and to send remittances to family • Discrimination of single mothers, divorced and widow women in origin countries • Violent family relationships Receiving countries: • Increasing demand for unskilled women in services, care, domestic and sexual work • Lack of gender perspective in policies to reconcile productive and reproductive work for native women

6. The feminization of migration, traffic and risks • Workers with the same level of education earn about 5 times more in U.S. or Canada, compared to how much they earn in Latin America and Caribbean countries. • As a result of these complementary gaps, irregular and undocumented migration flows are increasing, and women participation is increasing in these flows. • Undocumented women, young people and children are more exposed to risks of migration: exploitation, mistreatment, discrimination, living secretly, illicit traffic, abuse, violence, xenophobia, rape, health and reproductive health risks

7. The feminization of migration, traffic and risks • While the size and diversity of female migration are increasing, women still tend to be more concentrated in traditionally female occupations and in the informal sector. • Those in unregulated sectors of the economy are at greater risk of exploitation and abuse and often lack access to adequate or quality sexual and reproductive health services. • The feminization of migration and the abuses often experienced by women call for the recognition of gender equality as an integral part of the process of policy making, planning, programme delivery and monitoring at all levels.

8. The feminization of migration, traffic and risks • Young people and women are seeking to find a job opportunity,but traffickers are selling their hope and stealing dreams. • The majority of trafficking victims are migrants lured by the false promise of a decent job, who are trapped in situations of abuse and exploitation.

9. The feminization of migration, trafficking and risks Migration of women and young people expose them to trafficking, to human rights violations and to slave-like conditions, and to health risks including STDs and HIV.Increasing migrant flows of women and young people have resulted in growing UNFPA attention to such complex issues as human trafficking and human rights.

10. The International Labour Organization estimated that • 2.45 million trafficking victims are currently toiling in exploitative conditions • Another 1.2 million are trafficked annually, across and within national borders. • Up to 80% are women and girls and up to 50% are children • Most for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation. • Trafficked women are usually forced into prostitution and sex tourism, commercial marriages and other “female” occupations such as domestic work, agricultural and sweatshop labour.

11. Trafficking: the globalization of organized crime • Trafficking overlap with migration where it involves violence, and also intersects with smuggling.

12. Modern-day slavery • Slavery includes forced labour, serfdom (forced labour on another’s land), debt bondage, trafficking, forced prostitution, sexual slavery, forced marriage, the sale of wives and child servitude. • In Latin America mainly indigenous people are victims of forced labour. • Of the 12.3 million people forced into labour worldwide, women and girls are the majority: 56 per cent in forced economic exploitation, and 98 per cent in forced commercial sexual exploitation are women and girls. • Women labour migrants are often deceived into accepting jobs as domestic workers and are then trapped into debt-bondage or sexually trafficked.

13. Human trafficking • Human trafficking is driven by demand and fuelled by poverty and unemployment. • Many trafficking victims typically apply for advertised jobs as babysitters, models, hairdressers, dancers and waitresses—with friends and relatives, acting as recruiters. • Criminal networks, in collaboration with corrupt customs officials, process travel documents; and most women are forced into prostitution in order to pay off their “debt”. • Traffickers will often rape, isolate and/or drug victims in order to “break” their spirit and ensure compliance. • Women and girls are often sold and resold and then re-trafficked to other destinations.

14. Prosecution and repatriation • Trafficked persons are often fearful of reprisals if they cooperate with authorities. • Among government measures instituted is a “reflection period”, or short-term residence permit, that enables victims to recover and consider options. • The UN Trafficking Protocol recommends that governments allow victims to remain in the destination country, temporarily or permanently. • It also recommends that governments establish legal measures to allow victims compensation for damage suffered.

15. Protection, care and reintegration • Trafficking victims suffer depression and social stigma, and they need safety, support and care while undergoing social and economic reintegration: • protect their privacy and identity • legal information and counselling in a language that victims understand • telephone hotlines available, • legal services, • social programmes, including psychological and medical care, shelters and crisis centres • reproductive health services to trafficked women and girls • educational and income-generating opportunities • financial and social empowerment.

16. Protecting the human rights of the victims • We recognize that any progress in stopping human trafficking must focus promoting and protecting the human rights of the victims. • There is an urgent need to continue and increase efforts in : • Assisting and providing redress to victims. • Identifying and punishing traffickers and those who engage in the exploitation of women and children to curtail demand. • Educating communities. Experience shows that successful education efforts often involve survivors who tell their story, offering personal testimony and first hand experience of the nightmares they have endured.

17. Protecting the human rights of the victims • Today, trafficking constitutes a multi-dimensional threat to human dignity and international peace and security. It is therefore our urgent and shared responsibility to stop the phenomenon in all of its manifestations. • Our gathering here today is an important step we are taking in the region, to ensure that global efforts to counter human trafficking are strengthened.

18. To continue combating trafficking, public awareness can be raised—including about the victims’ rights, police and law enforcement officials can be better trained to identify victims and to prosecute offenders, and everyone including non- governmental organizations working on the issue must be supported. • Likewise, it is vital that governments, NGOs and United Nations agencies continue to embark on development programmes aimed at reducing poverty and the vulnerability and exploitation of women and children that fuel trafficking. • However, gender inequalities and the subordinate position of women and girls continue to provide fertile ground for trafficking.

19. Preventing trafficking in women and girls • To fight trafficking effectively, underlying causes such as poverty and the lack of equal opportunities need to be addressed. • Women who lack economic security are easy prey if they are willing to leave their country in search of work elsewhere. The elimination of discrimination against women is thus not only a human rights priority, but also key to putting an end to trafficking. • Effective prevention requires a comprehensive approach. This involves education and includes awareness-raising campaigns, community involvement, poverty reduction initiatives and the creation of livelihood opportunities.

20. Preventing trafficking in women and girls • It also involves more equitable income distribution and the rebuilding of societies following conflict. • Legal reforms that allow equal rights to own and control property and land will help cut the risks associated with the trafficking of women in rural communities. • There are many examples of development programmes aimed at reducing the vulnerability of poorer communities.

21. If we want to prevent trafficking in persons, it is crucial that we fight global poverty and discrimination and violence against women and girls. • We need to continue working together to ensure that women and girls have equal opportunities in their countries of origin—with respect to education, training and employment, and that their full range of human rights are protected. • Eliminating discrimination against women and children is not only a human rights priority but also a key strategy for putting an end to trafficking. Given the link between trafficking and the violation of women’s rights, including their reproductive health and rights, there is a need to address the problem in a comprehensive way. This requires a strengthened legal and policy framework.

22. Promoting development and rights and reducing imbalances among countries An ordered and safe migration and border includes Enabling Frameworks • Legal recognition of dual nationality • 2. VISA policies to encourage contact and return. • 3. Institutional arrangements to strengthen connections between diasporas, including government, private sector, professional and civil organizations, and migrants. • 4. Multi-national programs and incentives for legal recruitment and protection of migrants

23. Promoting development and rights and reducing imbalances among countries Supporting matching multi-national programs • Economic arrangements • Infrastructure (the Mexican 3x1 program) • Housing • Productive • Social security and • Educational bi-national programs

24. Drawing on diasporas as human capital and ‘skills banks’: Training professionals to provide short term technical assistance in their home countries. Productive programs • Government and multilateral agencies can support training for local government, migrants and families, to promote reinvestment, increasing capabilities on financial and management business. • Elimination of administrative and credit barriers • Facilitating procedures, offering training programs and productive credits for small business in LAC.

25. Encouraging the return of diaspora members by housing, employment, social security and reintegration Multi-national social security systems linked to strategies to reduce poverty: • Multi-national health and retirement insurance schemes • Multi-national programs of prevention and promotion of healthier behavior, particularly in sexual and reproductive health in origin and destination community, and during the journey. • Integration of information on health and educational services available to migrants and families in both countries. • To establish multi-national system of information on transmissible disease and reproductive health

26. Multi-national social security systems linked to strategies to reduce poverty In the borders • Governments can offer preventive services, diagnosis and treatment on HIV-AIDS, STI, tuberculosis and other transmissible illnesses at key points of the border, at transit points and in border cities, in friendly migrant places. • In border cities, municipalities can work together and support actions of civil organizations.

27. Education discriminates poorest, women and indigenous migrants Multi-national education programme: • Promoting bilingual learning for children and migrants, particularly indigenous in schools, to improve capabilities and rights and to increase productivity • Increasing educational budgets, extending coverage, quality and co-responsibilities. • Training and up-dating teachers • Eliminating discrimination by language

28. Thanks