Friends of the Forensic Science Club, this week we present the paper “Institutional Response to Trafficking in Human Beings in Spain: Are All Victims Equally Protected”, by Villacampa, C., Torres, C., Miranda, X. (2022), in which the authors carry out an online study of about 150 people or organizations that may have encounter trafficking in human beings (THB) victims to determine if victims´ human rights respond focused on their detection and protection.

Trafficking in human beings (THB) is the process where a person is exploited in any type of illegal economic activity by means of the threat or use of force, exchange, or abuse of the trafficker´s power.

This phenomenon is intrinsically linked to migration, individuals willing to transferred from one place to another knowing they can be abducted, rental, sale, or even deception can be explained by the need to leave their countries of origin.

The was two main protocols United Nations created to THB to prevent, or to at least help regulate it. However, this has nothing to do with how states deal with this reality.

Spain was chosen as a case study to undertake this research because of the deficiency of the approach, the regulatory confusion has not disappeared over time according to authorities. In Spain, the trafficking for sexual exploitations is identified solely with prostitution.

Now, the method used for recollecting data on the institutional approach to THB was a survey conducted of various bodies, units and organizations (BUOs) that might have come into contact with victims of the process in two years prior to the study.

The online questionnaire had three parts. The first one was general questions about the characteristics of the BUO. The second part, completed only by those bodies that had detected victims, about the type of assistance they had provided and which victims it was targeted at.

And the third part was to complete four sections depending on whether they had detected THB victims for sexual, labor, criminal or other forms of exploitation. And for each type of trafficking detected, they were asked more in-depth questions.

The results shows that 34% victims were detected was BUO undertook and action or operation to detect victims, other 34% shows that another BUO with knowledge of the situation referred the victim. 24% the victims turned to the BUO directly, and only 6% were friends of acquaintances of the victims that reported the situation, and the last 2% were reported by family members of the victims.

Some types of assistance provided to THB Victims were victim assistance and protection (31.6%), victim identification (28.9%), criminal prosecution of trafficking 18.4%), prevention of secondary victimization of trafficking victims (7.9%), collection of data on trafficking matters (3.9%), national or international collaboration on trafficking matters (3.9%), trafficking prevention (1.3%).

BUOs that reported having detected victims were asked about the types of protection measures they applied. They were told that they could choose more than one of the listed options, as well as add others. The most frequent responses were legal assistance (85.5%), medical and psychological assistance (71%) and accommodation (67.7%).

Finally, with regard to the implementation of victim assistance programmes in this field, more should be done to provide for and effectively activate protection meas- ures aimed at victimised groups in addition to sex-trafficked women. Victims of THB for labour exploitation, amongst whom the percentage of men is higher, should also receive attention from the victim assistance system.

If you want to know more about forensic science, don’t miss our Master of Science in Criminal Profiling or our Master of Science in Anti-Fraud Behavioral Analysis, 100% online programs that can be taken in Spanish or English. Ask us about our grants!