Press Release, the ALDE party, April 17, 2013

The President of the ALDE Gender Equality Network Flo Clucas and liberal European Commissioner for Home Affairs Cecilia Malmström have expressed their profound concern and disappointment after a report revealed that human trafficking in the EU has increased in recent years and 80% of the victims are women and young girls. They also strongly criticised 21 EU member states for the delays in implementing into national law the EU directive on human trafficking, adopted in March 2011. The European Commission report presented on Monday, the first compilation of data from more than 25 European nations of its kind, showed human trafficking increased by 18% between 2008 and 2010 and that during the same time the number of convictions for the crime fell by 13%.

As EU member states identified human trafficking as one of the priority areas in the fight against organised crime, the ALDE Gender Equality Network is very disappointed and worried that, despite the alarming trends, only a few countries have implemented the anti-trafficking legislation. Flo Clucas, President of the ALDE Gender Equality Network, said: “Even though EU governments have had two years to implement tougher standardised anti-trafficking legislation, only six out of 27 states have done this. Large EU-states, such as Germany, France and Great Britain have not implemented tougher measures in their national legislatures, this is not acceptable…”

Liberals concerned about rise in human trafficking