Human Trafficking as a Crime and Human Rights Violation: Challenges for Criminology

Trafficking of human beings that constitutes a contemporary form of slavery is a human rights violation and a serious crime. Due to the importance of this crime, it is covered by several international instruments of a different legal nature. Among them, two are especially important: The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children supplementing the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organised Crime and Council Framework Decision of l9 July 2002 on Combating Trafficking in Human Beings. There are two main features of human trafficking: these offences are transnational by nature and involve organised criminal groups. However, trafficking is considered transnational not only if it is committed in more than one state, but also if a substantial part of preparation or planning takes place in another state. There are numerous forms of crime human trafficking, such as the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery servitude or the removal of organs. It should be added that also child pornography is considered as human trafficking. As human trafficking is a complex phenomenon, there are also criminal activites which might be called ‘borderline’ such as forced marriages, marriage of convenience, illegal adoption, sex tourism or forced domestic labour. Many of tchem are not even considered as crime. Human trafficking constitutes a serious challenge for criminology, as it becomes one of the most fruitful criminal activities. So far, it has not been a popular subject of studies and research. Although our knowledge of organised crime as such is growing significantly, the trafficking is a problem for crime control due to its nature, economic background, well-organised market of the services and the lack of knowledge and skills of the state institutions, and the ambivalence of the public