By Louise Tait - 7th July 2009
Child trafficking in the EU's 27 member states is often unreported and goes unpunished, according to a report by the Fundamental Rights Agency.
The European commission has estimated that several hundred thousand people are victims of illegal trafficking every year, with a substantial number of these children.
However, FRA director Morten Kjaerum warned that a "lack of monitoring" meant "there are no reliable statistics" which can provide an accurate picture of the true extent of the problem.
Kjaerum told reporters in Brussels on Tuesday that child trafficking is a general phenomenon across all 27 EU states, with children routinely disappearing from shelters.
For example, in Hungary alone in 2005 more than 1800 children reportedly disappeared from shelters.
"Every year a significant number of children in the EU fall victim to trafficking for sexual exploitation, labour exploitation, adoption and organ extraction," said Kjaerum.
The problem, however, is that there is often very little or no investigation by member states into what has happened to these children after they have disappeared.
The identification of trafficking victims is also a major obstacle to the effective protection of children, with traffickers going "unpunished" more often than not.
"Convictions for child trafficking only occurred in four member states for the period 2000-2007," Kjaerum said.
"If victims are not identified, the whole protection system fails," he added.
Although the FRA's report does not contain detailed information about the country of origin of trafficked children, Kjaerum said that both trafficking between member states and intra-state trafficking was an issue for the EU.
He spoke of "an intra-EU issue which should be addressed" by EU legislation, as some countries still require the crossing of an international border to qualify as trafficking.
The EU must do more to address the problem of child trafficking by introducing minimum standards in the legislative field, Kjaerum said.
These include an obligation for member states to monitor the disappearance of children and the introduction of minimum standards to identify victims.
Other proposals include a move away from a penal approach, so victims are not criminalised, ensuring socio-economic rights such as the right to housing and education and adopting a more long-term approach to trafficked children.
The FRA has no requirements as to whether these provisions are incorporated into the framework of general instruments dealing with trafficking or whether they are compiled in a separate, specialised instrument dealing only with child trafficking.
Kjaerum said that this "mix of measures" would help ensure that victims are at the centre of the EU's actions to combat child trafficking.
The Stockholm programme, due to be adopted by the council at the summit in December, provides a "unique opportunity" to upgrade work to protect trafficked children, he added.
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