Following the declaration of territorial application of the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings to Aruba deposited by the Kingdom of the Netherlands on 23 January 2015, the Council of Europe’s Group of Experts on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings (GRETA) carried out the first evaluation of Aruba which combined the first and second evaluation rounds of the Convention.
In its first report on Aruba published today, GRETA welcomes the steps taken to develop the legal and policy framework for combating trafficking in human beings, the setting up of co-ordinating structures and specialised entities, and the efforts made to raise public awareness.
However, GRETA expresses concern about gaps in victim identification and urged the authorities to strengthen mechanisms for early victim detection and to ensure that, in practice, the identification of victims, upon which assistance measures depend, is not linked to the prospects of the investigation and prosecution.
GRETA also urges the Aruban authorities to ensure that access to assistance for foreign victims is not conditional on their co-operation with law enforcement, and that adequate resources are put in place to enable all victims of trafficking to benefit from assistance and support.
No compensation has been paid to victims of trafficking by perpetrators and there is no state compensation mechanism for victims of crime. Consequently, GRETA calls on the Aruban authorities to adopt legislative or other measures to facilitate and guarantee access to compensation for victims of trafficking.
GRETA also asks the authorities to adopt a specific legal provision on the non-punishment of victims of human trafficking for their involvement in unlawful activities, to the extent that they were compelled to do so, and to develop relevant guidance for law enforcement officials and prosecutors.
Moreover, GRETA calls on the authorities to ensure that a recovery and reflection period of at least 30 days, as provided for in Article 13 of the Convention, is specifically defined in law.
Aruba is predominantly a country of destination for trafficked persons. The authorities detected 34 presumed victims of trafficking in 2015-2023, of whom 17 were confirmed by the police as victims of trafficking. The majority of the victims originated from Colombia and Venezuela, and were trafficked for the purposes of sexual and labour exploitation.
