The criminal prosecution of victims of trafficking in the light of V.C.L. and A.N. vs United Kingdom

Abstract

One of the purposes of a criminal prosecution is that of bringing offenders to justice where these fail to abide by the law, causing harm both to the victims of their crime and to society as a whole. However, there might be cases where an alleged offender is contemporaneously a victim of another crime. The situation becomes even more complex where the crime involved is human trafficking, and thus the offender was forced to commit other crimes as a result of this crime. Human trafficking goes back as early as the African and Transatlantic slave trade, a period in which empires sought to expand their territory. Nowadays, it has become a widespread global problem, often involving a web of organised criminality. This has in fact posed a difficulty to the international community in adequately addressing it along the years. The focus of this dissertation shall be on one aspect of human trafficking, that is, the criminal prosecution of trafficking victims, which shall be analysed in light of V.C.L. and A.N. vs United Kingdom delivered by the European Court of Human Rights. Since States have an obligation to take active steps in preventing human trafficking, as well as to prosecute alleged traffickers and to safeguard the rights of victims, these obligations shall be analysed with reference to the relevant international instruments and the recurring element of human rights law. Moreover, whilst what has been done so far is important, recommendations as to how States can prevent cases similar to the abovementioned landmark judgement shall also be made. This will serve to show that new measures are indeed needed to adequately address cases where human trafficking survivors are prosecuted, and to bring to justice those involved in this serious crime.