We call on the European Commission to ensure that the new EU-Anti Trafficking Strategy includes disability rights and is firmly based on the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).
Our demands
We urge the European Commission to ensure that the new Strategy:
- Guarantees disability rights are included in all actions and objectives, in full compliance with the CRPD, especially Articles 13 (access to justice) and 16 (freedom from exploitation, violence, and abuse).
- Implements and aligns with the revised Victims’ Rights Directive by guaranteeing accessibility, procedural accommodations, and reasonable accommodation for victims with disabilities in all justice and support systems. All victim support services, including shelters, helplines, legal aid, and reporting mechanisms, must be accessible in practice.
- Provides disability-sensitive training for professionals such as police officers, judges, prosecutors, asylum officers, healthcare workers, and social workers. These trainings should be developed in collaboration with organisations of persons with disabilities.
- Explicitly bans forced sterilisation across the EU and includes measures to address the sexual exploitation and trafficking of women and girls with disabilities.
- Improves data collection by requiring Member States to gather and report data disaggregated by disability, gender, age, and migration status, and by commissioning an EU study on trafficking among vulnerable groups, including persons with disabilities.
- Integrates a disability perspective in migration and asylum policies, including through a guidance on applicants with disabilities from the EU Asylum Agency.
Read our full recommendations.
Context: persons with disabilities are invisible victims of trafficking
Persons with disabilities are at a heightened risk of being trafficked and exploited, yet our rights and needs remain largely invisible in policy and practice.
Recent reports, including the OSCE’s 2024 paper “Invisible victims: The nexus between disabilities and trafficking in human beings” and a briefing paper on trafficking and the rights of persons with disabilities demonstrate that disability can be both a cause and a consequence of trafficking:
- Traffickers often target people who experience dependency, isolation, poverty, or institutionalisation.
- Women and girls with disabilities are particularly at risk of sexual exploitation, including forced sterilisation and contraception.
- Persons with disabilities in conflict and migration contexts face even higher risks.
Despite these realities, the EU has yet to meaningfully address the intersection between disability and trafficking:
- The revised Anti-Trafficking Directive acknowledges persons with disabilities as part of vulnerable groups, but this has not been translated into meaningful actions.
- The European Commission’s 2025 Fifth Progress Report mentions persons with disabilities only once, and no concrete measures have been developed to ensure their rights and protection.
The forthcoming Strategy must correct this and fully integrate the rights of persons with disabilities in all its objectives and actions.
Our participation in the consultation
We took part in the European Commission’s public consultation on the upcoming EU Anti-Trafficking Strategy 2026-2030 and submitted our recommendations to the EU Anti-Trafficking Coordinator.
Our contribution is based on past advocacy to highlight the connection between trafficking and disability, including our 2022 position paper on combating trafficking in persons with disabilities.
Next steps
Member States have until 15 July 2026 to transpose the revised Anti-Trafficking Directive adopted in 2024.
The European Commission is expected to publish the EU Anti-Trafficking Strategy 2026-2030 later this year.
We will continue to engage closely with EU institutions, Member States, and civil society partners to make sure that the Strategy reflects the rights and realities of persons with disabilities.