Nine years after Malta ratified a United Nations protocol against human trafficking, the matter returned on the national agenda last week after the court jailed a human trafficker for 11 years.
The court case, which dealt with crimes committed in 2004, painted a sordid picture of modern-day slavery where Russian women are brought over to Malta, kept under lock and key in a farmhouse, forced into prostitution and eventually even sold to third parties.
Rare as these cases may be, last year an American human rights scholar had told The Times that 14 convictions related to human trafficking between 2002 and 2010 were “just the tip of the iceberg”.
Terence Coonan, the executive director of Florida State University Centre for the Advancement of Human Rights, had argued that a shadow industry involving the prostitution of trafficked women could develop around the gentlemen’s club trade in Malta.
“When you scratch the surface there may well be more,” Prof. Coonan had said with reference to concerns about human trafficking raised by the US State Department last year.
In its annual Human Trafficking report for 2011, the US put Malta on the second tier watch list, making it one of only three EU countries on the list.
The report had identified Malta as a source and destination country for European women and children subjected to sex trafficking and a likely destination country for men and women subjected to forced labour, including in restaurants, private households, and in unskilled or semi-skilled jobs.
While noting the significant efforts the government undertook to combat human trafficking, the US said Malta did not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking.
Human trafficking for the purposes of prostitution has been a criminal offence since 1930 under the White Slaves Traffic (Suppression) Ordinance.
Laws were subsequently tightened along the years with major changes happening in 2002 in accordance with Malta’s commitment to the UN convention against organised crime that also dealt with human trafficking.
But Malta only appointed its first anti-trafficking coordinator and anti-trafficking monitoring board last year, and according to the US State Department no concrete improvements had been registered on victim identification procedures and prosecutions of trafficking offenders.
A government action plan to combat human trafficking exists but the latest court case highlights the importance of translating those words into action.
ksansone@timesofmalta.com