The Organized Crime Convention and Trafficking Protocol provide a reference point for countries without domestic legislation to begin preparing anti-trafficking initiatives, but provide curiously broad and vague guidance on how to implement measures related to protection. For instance, on the one hand, the Trafficking Protocol broadly requires states to "take or strengthen measures ... to alleviate the factors that make . . . women and children [especially] vulnerable to trafficking, such as poverty, underdevelopment, and lack of equal opportunities."85 On the other hand, the protection measures they do require are limited generally to tiffany key rings uk that will render the victim able to serve as a witness against a trafficker.86 Reflecting this prosecution emphasis, the Protocol only asks stales to "consider" adopting measures that would permit trafficked persons to remain in the destination country, failing to overtly acknowledge, as will be argued within, that assisting with immigration solutions would also improve the availability of trafficked persons as witnesses.87
The Trafficking Victims Protection Act [TVPA], another prosecution-oriented piece of anti-trafficking legislation, does include provisions for the care of victims.88 It even allows the provision of temporary visas for victims, so-called T-visas, and further allows for the possibility of permanent residency. The TVPA conditions the permanent residency, however; it "permits victims to remain in the US if it is determined that the victim is 'a tiffany money clips uk witness to such traffickings.'"89 It also limits the number of T-visas granted to 5,000 (regardless of how many trafficked persons might qualify),90 and limits T-visas to victims of "severe forms of trafficking."91 Finally, it relies heavily on economic sanctions to punish countries of origin or transit for failing to effectively prosecute traffickers.92 While the concept of imposing economic sanctions for human rights violations is arguably sound, a country in political, administrative, and economic transition is not likely to be able or willing to rally its resources to effectively combat trafficking even with loss of aid as an incentive.93
Despite its heavy emphasis on prosecution, in 2001 and 2002, the Department of tiffany necklaces uk successfully prosecuted only thirty-six cases, although the Department of State projects that more than 50,000 persons are trafficked into the United States each year.94 As of February 2003, two years after the TVPA went into effect, only twenty-three T-visas had been granted.95
On the whole, and particularly in comparison with other anti-trafficking legislation, the TVPA is quite comprehensive. However, the legislation focuses too much on funding annual reports criticizing countries for failures to enact or adopt legislation, and too little on ensuring that anti-trafficking legislation and initiatives are actually implemented and that US-funded programs are held accountable for producing results at a grassroots level.96
In late 2001, the European Union, following up its Resolutions on trafficking in human beings and trade in persons and the 2000 Organized Crime Convention and its Trafficking Protocol, discussed above, issued a "Proposal for an EU tiffany pendants uk Framework Decision on Combating Trafficking in Human Beings."97 The proposal was drafted after pleas from the NGO and international community to address victims in the context of transnational anti-trafficking measures.
Nevertheless, the European Union has specifically emphasized the prosecution of traffickers as its primary objective. The amended EU proposal changed little, offering only temporary immigration protections to victims when and if they cooperated with prosecution endeavors. If trafficked persons did not have anything to offer prosecutors, they could be deported. In fact, the European Union took great pains to point out that temporary residence permits were not to be granted for the benefit of the victim, but rather for the sole purpose of facilitating prosecution of traffickers.98 States were not obliged to develop any programs or immigration measures to assist trafficked persons.
The Council Framework Decision on Combating Trafficking in Human Beings requires that by August 2004, member states must pass "effective, proportionate and dissuasive" legislation to penalize traffickers." The Framework Decision is generally very skeletal, leaving tiffany rings uk to states to decide in some respects, yet oddly specific when it conies to certain provisions such as setting the maximum penalty for trafficking at "no less than eight years," but not setting a minimum penalty.100 The Decision further elaborates on jurisdiction, granting each member state the right to prosecute trafficking when 1) the offense is committed on its territory, 2) the offender is its national, or 3) the offense is committed for the benefit of a person "established" in the territory of that member state.101 Although anti-trafficking NGOs and IOs have been pushing EU institutions for six years to strengthen protection measures, most decisions regarding the prosecution of traffickers have been left to individual member states and no victim protection requirements have been established.
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