Speech by Richard Wood, Head of the Home Affairs & Public Security Section EUSR/EUD

At the conference ‘Developments in the harminsation of BiH criminal legislation related to the trafficking of human beings’

Good afternoon Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen. The European Union Delegation and European Union Special Representative are grateful to the organisers and thank them for the invitation to speak at this important event.

I am very pleased to be here and I welcome the initiative of the State Coordinator for the fight against Trafficking in Human Beings (THB) and the OSCE mission to BiH for organizing a meeting focusing on the legislative developments in the criminalization of THB in BiH.

The seriousness and severity of the crime of THB poses an obligation on all of us to ensure the necessary preconditions to fight this phenomenon effectively. The EU is strongly committed to fight Trafficking of Human Beings and to quote Mrs Mallstrom, the EU Commissioner for Home Affairs, it poses both legal and moral obligations on us to ensure the means to address this challenge accordingly.

The European Union has recently reinforced its efforts to counter this crime by adopting the new anti-trafficking Directive in 2011 and the European Strategy for the fight against THB for the period 2012-2016. The Directive achieves a lot, harmonising the definition of the crime and the penalties. It also lays down robust provisions to help investigate and prosecute traffickers. The EU Strategy further strengthens the fight against THB across the EU and strengthens cooperation between countries.

We are aware that there is a new BiH THB Strategy and the Action Plan 2013-2015 is in the pipeline, we strongly recommend to the Council of Ministers of BiH to proceed with its adoption. 

In the past few years BiH has made some good progress in fighting trafficking. However, it needs to be noted that there is an outstanding issue when it comes to the criminalization of THB at all levels in BiH, as pointed out in our EU Progress Reports in 2011 and 2012.

I invite the responsible authorities in BIH, be it the Ministries of Justice or the respective members of the parliamentary commissions present here today, to consider this issue and to forward the amendments into the adoption procedure.

We cannot talk about effective responses to this form of crime without having legislation in place which will criminalize and penalize the act of THB in accordance with international standards – and which will enable effective investigation and prosecution of the perpetrators in a unified manner across the entire territory. A Harmonized approach to criminalization and prosecution will lead to a harmonized approach to providing protection to victim’s.

I am very pleased to be at this meeting today and I am convinced that we all share the same goal: to ensure that the instruments for fighting this “illness” of modern society affecting our most vulnerable groups are in place.

I would like to conclude by stressing once again that the fight against trafficking in human beings is and will remain a top priority for the EU and we are ready to offer all the necessary support to help BiH to address this issue.

Thank you for your attention