Malta would make a happy playground for child traffickers due to its failure to recognise the signs and act, according to a university professor.
“The main obstacle is the lack of understanding over the complexity of child trafficking,” Frances Camilleri-Cassar said.
An associate professor in social policy, Prof. Camilleri-Cassar raised the issue in a small-scale study on human trafficking in an attempt to create awareness and to push for a policy agenda on the subject.
To date, child protection procedures to address the needs of trafficked children were not in place, Prof. Camilleri-Cassar concluded after exploring and hearing the views of professionals in the field.
“The situation between smuggling and trafficking remains blurred,” she said at a conference to raise awareness on the subject, organised by Cross Culture International Foundation yesterday.
A public seminar on the same topic on Thursday will be led by law students and addressed by Faculty of Laws dean Kevin Aquilina.
Knowledge about the scale and extent of child trafficking in Malta was scant, but Prof. Camilleri-Cassar warned that failing to notice the signs led to a breeding ground for traffickers.
She questioned the sharp increase in the rate of young migrants who had been accepted as minors and granted a care order in Malta – rising from a five per cent of total arrivals in 2012, to 18 per cent last year and 28 per cent in the first quarter of this year.
“What’s behind this accelerated increase? Is there a hidden trafficker or network lurking in the background?” she asked. Prof. Camilleri-Cassar also raised NGOs’ concerns that migrant teenagers were going missing from open centres.
The main obstacle is the lack of understanding over the complexity of child trafficking
“Where have they gone? Where are they now? We don’t know. Are they still in Malta or have they gone abroad? We don’t know. Why the ambiguity? Why don’t we know?
“The fact that no information on the number of unaccompanied minors going missing from local authority care is collected centrally poses a dangerous problem, and Malta needs to address this gap with urgency,” she stressed.
She referred to a recent report by the US State Department that classified Malta as a Tier 2 transit and destination source – countries whose governments did not fully comply with the Trafficking Victims Protection Act’s minimum standards but were making significant efforts to do so.
“Effective law enforcement against traffickers is a major deterrent... and the surest way to send a clear message that child trafficking will not be tolerated here,” Prof. Camilleri-Cassar said.
She recommended establishing a guardianship scheme for children suspected of having been trafficked to ensure they were provided with proper accommodation and care.
Involving child specialists in developing anti-trafficking policies and preparing a manual of procedures and guidelines to identify possible victims were also essential steps.
She urged the authorities to carry out research to shed light on this phenomenon.
“In the few cases where children are identified or suspected as victims of trafficking, our poor response to their needs and the lack of successful criminal prosecutions of the perpetrators make Malta a happy playground for child traffickers,” Prof. Camilleri-Cassar said.