The implementation difference in countering human trafficking: Germany and the Netherlands in the European Union

Human trafficking is an ongoing issue that victimizes people, often poor, weak, and isolated. These victims are taken against their will or enticed by traffickers by presenting an “opportunity” and purposely leaving out essential details. As victims, these individuals are exploited beyond their choice and are made to do lewd acts in exchange for money and, sometimes, their own lives. Various factors continue to affect the problem of human trafficking, which, in turn, shows multiple impacts on countries affected by such. One of the modern-day factors attributed to the rise of human trafficking is globalization; this includes network effects/scale economies associated with illicit trade and the demand for goods and services (Gilbertson, 2015). As globalization enables the free flow of goods, finances, and services — human trafficking is now more prominent in the highly globalized international system. The European Union has been the focal point of human trafficking as data suggests that many cases come from the European continent (United Nations Office on Drug and Crime, 2010). Various strategies through the form of legislations and directives has been enacted by the different organizations within the European Union, however, all these has been to no avail as the numbers of trafficked individuals continue to rise year by year. Given the rampant need for the issue to be addresses, the researchers would like to answer the main research question, (1) Why is there a disparity in the cases of human trafficking across different member states despite the anti-trafficking initiatives legislated by the European Union?; further the discussion to answer the supplementary questions, (2) What are the specific strategies locally implemented by Germany and the Netherlands that are in line with the EU Strategy towards the Eradication of Trafficking in Human Beings 2012-2016?, and lastly, (3) Which aspects do Germany and the Netherlands heavily prioritize in their policies relating to combating human trafficking that, in turn, affects the course of the implementation in their respective countries? The researchers will utilize the comparative research design to answer the study’s research questions, and the small-N type of comparative method to compare two countries – the criteria for selecting the two countries will be based on Most Similar Systems Design (MSSD) which is based on the selection of cases, in this study, cases pertain to the countries; that share many essential characteristics and differ in a crucial aspect that must be related to the interest of the researchers. Data from The Group of Experts on Action or GRETA, German Embassy in the Philippines, the Dutch Embassy in the Philippines, European Union, European Commission, European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol) were gathered by the researchers to aid in answering different questions in the study