29 Sep 2014
In 2014 La Strada International and 30 partner organisations in Europe launched the campaign Used in Europe: human trafficking and labour exploitation on our continent. This campaign reached out to consumers, the private sector and States to address human trafficking, including forced and exploitative labour in Europe.
We called upon governments to take a clear stand against human trafficking and to end exploitative labour conditions for all workers, including migrant workers, in Europe.
In particular, we called upon governments:
- To ensure that all relevant national and international legislation, available to promote labour standards, is enforced.
- To promote decent working conditions; to ensure that informal and unregulated work is brought within the protection of labour laws and that labour rights are applied to all workers irrespective of migration and residence status.
- To increase the identification of human trafficking cases by ensuring adequate labour inspection, with a specific focus on human rights violations and exploitation. Inspection of violation of labour laws should be delinked from the control of residence status of workers, so that workers have an opportunity to report exploitation without fearing arrest and deportation.
- To increase the investigation, detection and prosecution of human trafficking cases, including labour exploitation by businesses.
- To set up control mechanisms to monitor businesses compliance with labour standards and human rights; to provide incentives for companies that comply, while enacting sanctions for businesses that do not respect human rights.
- To be transparent about and critically assess own supply chains and services to ensure these are free of forced and exploitative labour; to take additional care in monitoring and preventing human rights abuses by business enterprises owned, controlled, or subcontracted by the state.
- To be coherent and consistent in internal and external policies and ensure that all government measures are based on human rights; to refrain from cooperation with countries that make systematic use of forced labour.
- To increase awareness and information about the origins of products and services and to enable customers to make informed decisions about their purchases; to promote products and services made without labour exploitation and human trafficking.
- To provide victims of human rights abuses, including trafficked persons, with access to remedy through judicial, administrative, and legislative means.