Europe must do more for child victims of human trafficking: CoE

A new report released on Thursday by the Council of Europe's (CoE) group of experts on action against trafficking in human beings (Greta) said member states needed to improve efforts to protect children who are victims of human trafficking.

The report follows surveys of 35 signatories to the CoE convention on action against trafficking in human beings, and found that "almost all countries had to strengthen child victim identification and services."

Child victim services are listed as the main gap in implementing the convention, which has been in force since Feb. 1, 2008, and has now been signed and ratified by 42 countries. Turkey is the only country to have signed without ratification and Belarus is the only non-member state to have signed.

"Not enough is done in the first place to protect child victims of human trafficking. States must step up their efforts to identify child victims and to provide them with support and protection," said Petya Nestorova, Greta general secretary.

In a statement on Thursday, CoE secretary general Thorbjorn Jagland praised the convention as "a huge step forward in helping Europe to tackle this modern-day scourge in a coordinated and comprehensive manner."

"Important pieces of the jigsaw are still missing," he added. "Member states need to fully live up to the commitments they made when signing up to the convention so as to help put an end to this horrendous crime."

A total of 31 countries were listed in the report as having been "urged" by Greta to take specific action on child victims. Enditem