Making Victim s Rights a Reality. The Practical Experience of the CCEM

Transcription

1 Regional Round Table From Theory to Practice The Importance of Getting Justice In Combating Human Trafficking for labour exploitation including Domestic Servitude Making Victim s Rights a Reality The Practical Experience of the CCEM

2 The Practical Experience of the CCEM Comité Contre l Esclavage Moderne (CCEM) Paris based NGO, founded in 1994 by two journalists Main objective to fight against all forms of Modern-day slavery and especially trafficking for domestic servitude small number of permanent (lawyers and a social worker) network of voluntary: host families, lawyers, psychologists, interpreters/translators, doctors

3 The Practical Experience of the CCEM CCEM s strategy: Prevent and combat trafficking assisting trafficked people to get justice and to claim their rights based on : Outreach work Use of media Litigation strategy and victim s support

4 The Practical Experience of the CCEM Outreach work and use of media to detect cases of domestic servitude to facilitate the identification of trafficked people by the general public to facilitate the identification of trafficked people by targeted groups ( hotel s staff, teachers, social workers and health sector, concierge )

5 The Practical Experience of the CCEM Litigation Strategy: Get justice and claim victim s rights including compensation Use of existing legal tools and institutional tools Rely on a Network of multidisciplinary lawyers/barristers Legal, administrative and social support to victims Out-of-court negotiation

6 The Practical Experience of the CCEM Additional purposes of the litigation strategy: Development of the jurisprudence at National and European levels Prevention: use of the media to give visibility to the court cases

7 The Importance of Getting Justice In Combating Human Trafficking for labour exploitation including Domestic Servitude Making Victim s Rights a Reality

8 The French criminal context Criminal Code: offense of Trafficking in Human Beings No provision to criminalise: - forced labour - servitude - Slavery to punish labour exploitation: the offense of subjecting a person to working conditions that are incompatible with human dignity

9 Judges / Prosecutors dealing with cases: Not specialized Not trained Cour de cassation (Criminal Supreme Court) in charge of interpreting the Criminal law rules to appeal: technical and narrow compulsory representation by a specialized barrister

10 How to ensure the right to the perpetrator's conviction? The Legal Service of the CCEM: How does it work? - Going through cases: from the beginning of the judicial proceeding to compensation - Specialized lawyers: able to provide written expertise to support the work of the barristers

11 In case of refusal to prosecute: what can be done? To prosecute or not: - discretionary decision made by the prosecutor - most of the cases end up to a drop by the authorities Refer to the judge of investigation Payment of a deposit Compulsory representation by a Barrister Objectif of this specific procedure is to have the possibility to support the judge's inquiry Several resorts to go to the Supreme Court

12 To fight by referring to the labour tribunal - A civil Court that ensures the Labour Code's rules - To obtain the payment of wages / the welfare payments linked to a work contract In case of refusal to find guilty: what can be done? The use of the Supreme Court : - Cass. Crim. Judgment, 12/11/2001: the victim's freedom of movement has no effect on the existence of the offense - - Cass. Crim. Judgment, 03/29/2011: to have lessons of literacy (some hours per week) and the absence of physical violence have no effect on the existence of the offense

13 Using the European Court of Human Rights - Siliadin v. France (n 73316/01) - C.N. and V. v. France (n 67724/09)

14 Development of a new litigation strategy: using the State's Liability Schemes to ensure the victim's rights compensation v. perpetrator's immunity an effective investigation v. refusal of the police to investigate properly

15 Making Victim s Rights a Reality Thank you! Bénédicte Bourgeois Head of legal Service juriccem@wanadoo.fr Georgina Vaz Cabral Board Member georgina.vaz-cabral@osce.org