The European Disability Forum welcomes the revision of the Anti-Trafficking Directive. The Directive adopted in 2011 only makes a few references to disability and does not fully align with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) ratified by the EU and all its Member States.
Persons with disabilities, including women and girls with disabilities are at a higher risk of exploitation and may be more at risk of being trafficked, than persons without disabilities. Examples of trafficking faced by persons with disabilities are forced begging of persons with physical disabilities, including children, and sexual exploitation of women with intellectual or psychosocial disabilities. Persons with disabilities, especially children with disabilities, also face trafficking into institutions, which can also lead to forced labour and sexual exploitation.
In December 2022, the European Commission proposed a revision of the Anti-Trafficking Directive to update and further harmonise the EU’s legal framework, for example by including forced marriage and illegal adoption among the forms of exploitation covered by the Directive.
Unfortunately, the Commission missed the opportunity to strengthen the rights of persons with disabilities and to align with the CRPD.
EDF calls on the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union to strengthen the text of the Directive, by including amendments to:
- Add trafficking into institutions under the scope of the Directive
- Include aggravating circumstances for trafficking in person, including when it is based on the disability of the person
- Provide accessible and inclusive prevention and response measures and programmes
- Require data collection disaggregated by disability