Govt adopts action plan to combat human trafficking
Ljubljana, 26 January - The government adopted on Thursday the 2023-2024 action plan to fight human trafficking. The strategy envisages basic activities to prevent human trafficking that will be carried out through cooperation between relevant authorities and through the involvement of NGOs in prevention activities and victim support.
Systematic and long-term awareness-raising among children and teenagers will continue, the Interior Ministry said, noting that minors were an especially vulnerable group when it came to human trafficking.
Based on a multi-year plan, workshops will be held in the ninth grade of primary schools and the second year of secondary schools in all Slovenian regions, including in areas where members of the Roma community live.
The government office in charge of ethnic communities and minorities plans to include anti-trafficking content into its everyday work, in particular to address forced and early marriages in the Roma community.
To mark the EU Anti-Trafficking Day on 18 October, an event will take place to raise awareness about human trafficking for the purpose of labour exploitation. The prerequisite for human trafficking is the demand for goods and services provided by exploited workers or the victims of such crimes, and so prevention activities will aim to reduce this demand by spotlighting the responsibility of the users.
Moreover, a stronger link needs to be established with the private sector, which is directly or indirectly involved in most cases of forced labour.
The action plan also provides for training of many professionals, including police officers, labour inspectors, state prosecutors and judges, tax authority staff and employees of social work centres and asylum seekers centres.
The strategy includes six chapters: prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of the crime of human trafficking, identification and protection of and assistance to victims, international cooperation, improvement of systemic solutions and proposals for legislative changes, and coordination and support activities, the ministry added.