Child Trafficking on Rise

The international community has made great progress recently in creating a legal framework to define and prohibit human trafficking. The Palermo Protocol made a good start and has widespread support. The Council of Europe Convention tries to go further, and includes monitoring and accountability mechanisms. In order to evaluate and reconsider the present anti-trafficking legislation these two international anti-trafficking documents are compared in this work in order to find the best strategy to combat trafficking in children. It is argued that the Council of Europe Convention is not a perfect anti-trafficking instrument either but due to its special measures it offers more protection to children. Thus, it can be taken as a starting point for the ‘rebuilding'' the international legal system for preventing and combating trafficking in children, and for new national laws as well. This legal analysis suggests that the natural progression of anti-trafficking legislation includes the accelerating adoption of national laws enabling, facilitating, and mandating focused law enforcement campaigns against human trafficking of the most vulnerable victims, our children.