Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, 21st Session
Agenda item 5(a): Ratification and implementation of the UNTOC and the Protocols thereto
Statement delivered by the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW)
25 April 2012
Madam Chair,
The Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women, speaking on behalf of a number of NGOs including the Vienna Alliance of NGOs, welcomes the opportunity to discuss the implementation of the UNTOC and its Protocols, including the Trafficking Protocol. In the years since that Protocol’s adoption we have seen the ‘anti-trafficking industry’ become big business, with hundreds of millions of dollars spent in the name of ending human trafficking. With so many actors involved – 147 States party to the UN Trafficking Protocol, UN and other intergovernmental agencies, and a huge number of non-governmental actors, as well as celebrities, journalists and major media operations – there are now numerous, and often competing, initiatives to end human trafficking. So have these funds been spent wisely? Have these efforts been effective – for states and for the people who have been trafficked?