OSCE workshop discusses compensation for trafficked persons

BARCELONA, 12 December 2007 - Compensating victims of trafficking is the focus of a workshop organized by the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) that concludes today in Barcelona.

The three-day meeting, attended by legal professionals, workers' and migrants' rights activists and anti-trafficking NGOs from 15 OSCE participating States, explored the criminal and civil compensation options currently available to victims of trafficking and exploitation, as well as the obstacles that exist to successfully pursuing them.

"Trafficked persons may have multiple paths of action open to them in pursuing rights to compensation - an essential part of their rights to access to justice," said ODIHR Senior Anti-Trafficking Adviser Shivaun Scanlan. "But despite the fact that OSCE and other international standards provide for this, in practice hardly any victims of trafficking are ever compensated for the losses and abuse they have suffered."

Issues discussed included problems posed by trafficked persons' immigration status, difficulties in claiming compensation directly from traffickers who have not been successfully prosecuted, assessing material and non-material damages, as well as the role of state compensation funds and labour-law proceedings.

As well as exchanging experience from different professional perspectives and national practice, participants developed recommendations for improving access to rights that will be incorporated into a report on compensation for trafficked persons to be published by the ODIHR in 2008.