Council of Europe

16.09.2011 - The Council of Europe’s Group of Experts on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings (GRETA) has released two evaluation reports on trafficking in human beings, on Austria and Cyprus.

GRETA exhorts the Austrian authorities to pay more attention to certain categories of victims, in particular, child victims of trafficking, and to develop a system for the identification of child victims, providing them with emergency assistance as well as medium and long term support through programmes tailored to the child victims’ needs.

Earlier this week, GRETA also published a report on Cyprus, a country that is taking actions to prevent trafficking of human beings. The National Action Plan against Trafficking of Human Beings for 2010-2012 includes awareness raising plans specifically aimed at school children, the media, and potential victims of trafficking. On this report, it is noted that a reform of the school curricula is under development, where a multidisciplinary approach to human rights and sexual education will be promoted.

Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Thorbjørn Jagland commented the release of these reports emphasising that “every day, across Europe, men, women and children are being traded as a commodity for the purpose of exploitation. With the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings, governments have at their disposal a comprehensive tool to fight this modern form of slavery”.

Please read the press releases here

GRETA webpage:
http://www.coe.int/t/dghl/monitoring/trafficking/default_EN.asp