Skip to main content

2022-2023 Anti-Trafficking Action Plan for Slovakia

Countries
Slovakia
+ 1 more
Sources
UNHCR
Publication date
Origin
View original

Below please find recommendations for specific goals and objectives to further the Government of Slovakia’s anti-trafficking efforts over the next year:

  1. Continue to vigorously investigate, prosecute, and convict traffickers and sentence those convicted to significant prison terms.

  2. Continue to increase training for judges and prosecutors with a focus on a victim-centered, trauma-informed approach to law enforcement efforts and trial, as well as on the use of psychological coercion and fraud as means of trafficking.

  3. Continue to improve sentencing norms by sensitizing judges to the severity of trafficking crimes and the full range of penalties available.

  4. Improve efforts to proactively identify victims within the country, especially foreign nationals and Roma, and include training to government officials, particularly border police, labor inspectors, and municipal law enforcement, on proactive victim identification among vulnerable groups.

  5. Allow formal victim identification by and referral from entities other than the police, including civil society, social workers, and healthcare professionals.

  6. Improve the quality of human trafficking training courses available to prosecutors and judges.

  7. Increase awareness of and trafficking survivor access to damages and compensation and increase prosecutor’s efforts to systematically request restitution for survivors during criminal trials.

  8. Ensure labor trafficking is investigated and prosecuted as a trafficking crime and not pursued as an administrative labor code violation.

  9. Increase migrant worker protections by increasing efforts to monitor labor recruitment companies, including prosecutions for fraudulent labor recruitment.

  10. Amend the law on the non-punishment of victims to ensure that trafficking victims are not inappropriately penalized for unlawful acts traffickers compel them to commit.

  11. Continue efforts to inform foreign worker groups of worker rights and responsibilities and victim assistance resources in their native languages.

  12. Streamline definitions and methodologies for gathering law enforcement and victim data.

  13. Update public awareness campaigns to portray human trafficking in a more realistic manner.

  14. Effectively implement formal written procedures for a victim referral mechanism that outline roles for all officials and stakeholders in order to improve victims’ access to and the quality of assistance.

  15. Improve the coordination of protection services to children.

  16. Explore utilization of the witness protection program for trafficking victims.

  17. Enforce the law prohibiting recruitment fees charged to workers and ensure any recruitment fees are paid by employers.

  18. Continue to pursue financial crime investigations in tandem with human trafficking cases.

  19. Ensure consistent early access to free legal aid.