White House Summit on Human Trafficking and new resolutions by the Council of Europe
Executive order establishes positions to combat online child exploitation in the US, and the Council of Europe aims to strengthen cooperation to prevent trafficking of refugee and migrant children.
On Friday, the White House hosted its Summit on Human Trafficking and issued an executive order to combat human trafficking and online child exploitation in the United States. The order establishes a new position on the White House Domestic Policy Council focused on combating human trafficking. The order will also direct the Justice and Homeland Security departments to improve coordination on finding sexual images of children online, to help the administration to move more quickly to eliminate them.
Several prominent anti-human trafficking organizations were not attending the event. They voiced criticism of the U.S. Government over the administration’s immigration policies and increased scrutiny of those applying for T visas, which are given to victims of trafficking.
During the summit, the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (TIP Office) released the 2020 Freedom First Retrospective that looks back on 20 years of progress in combating human trafficking and notable developments.
Also last week, the Council of Europe held a joint debate on migrant trafficking and missing refugee and migrant children. The discussion led to the adoption of new resolutions to strengthen international action and co-operation to tackle modern slavery and to avoid the disappearance of thousands of child refugees and migrants.
The debates were based on two reports. The first, Concerted action against human trafficking and the smuggling of migrants, calls for the EU Member States to ensure that victims of human trafficking are not penalized and receive adequate assistance. The second report, Missing refugee and migrant children in Europe, highlights the special protection needs of refugee and migrant children along their journey to avoid their disappearance.
Here’s a round-up of other noteworthy updates and news:
This recent episode of the Ending Human Trafficking podcast discusses the challenges in aftercare for victims of human trafficking and the need for genuine collaboration.
The U.S. Department of the Treasury released its first webpage on the Department's efforts to combat human trafficking.
And this article discusses current public-private partnership efforts in anti-trafficking and who specific industries can play a more significant role in addressing the issue.
Young girls in southern Africa are selling sex to survive a hunger crisis and feed their families
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