DRAFT CEDAW General recommendation on Trafficking in
Women and Girls in the Context of Global Migration
5.
The Convention provisions are mutually reinforcing to provide complete protection for
women’s human rights.6 The general recommendation links article 6 of the Convention with all
other articles and the existing Committee’s jurisprudence, including its concluding
observations on the reports of States parties under the Convention, earlier general
recommendations, and its consideration of individual communications and conduct of inquiries
under the Optional Protocol to the Convention.
6.
The Committee appreciates the regional-specific approaches required to address the
forms of trafficking in women and girls across the globe. It acknowledges that the causes,
consequences and experience of trafficking differ for young girls and teenage girls from that of
adult women. In recalling that States parties are obliged to promote the equal rights of girls as
part of the larger community of women 7 , it encourages States parties to adopt a nuanced
response to combatting trafficking which takes into account these differences.8
III.
Legal framework
7.
The internationally-accepted legal definition of trafficking in persons is contained in
the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially
Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational
Organized Crime (A/RES/55/25) (2000):
Article 3. (a) “Trafficking in persons” shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer,
harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of threat or use of force or other forms of
coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of
vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent
of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.
Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or
other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar
to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs; (b) The consent of a victim of trafficking
in persons to the intended exploitation set forth in subparagraph (a) of this article shall be
irrelevant where any of the means set forth in subparagraph (a) have been used.
8.
The Committee appreciates that the definition of trafficking in persons extends beyond
situations where physical violence has been used or the victim’s personal liberty has been
deprived. Particularly in the case of girls, trafficking is constituted simply when a trafficking
act has been committing for the purpose of exploitation. Its examination of States parties’
reports reveal that the abuse of a position of vulnerability, the abuse of power and the culture
of impunity are the most common means used to commit the trafficking crime, and that victims
are often subjected to multiple forms of exploitation such as in cases where women and girls
are trafficked for sham, forced, child/early and/or servile marriage 9 , as well as for sexual
exploitation, forced labour and domestic servitude10.
9.
Under international law, the act of trafficking is defined as both a criminal offence and
as a human rights violation.11 States parties are required to address the phenomenon not only
from a criminal justice framework but also as one that respects, protects and fulfills the human
6
General recommendation No. 28 (2010) (CEDAW/C/GC/28), para. 6.
General recommendation No. 28 (2010) (CEDA W/C/GC/28), para. 21.
8
General recommendation No. 28 (2010) (CEDAW/C/GC/28), para. 21.
9
Report of the Secretary-General, Trafficking in women and girls, A/73/263 (2018), para. 15; Report
of the Special Rapporteur of the Human Rights Council on the sale of children, child prostitution and
child pornography, Sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, A/71/261 (2016), para.
54; CEDAW/C/MYS/CO/3-5.
10
A/HRC/33/46 (2016), paras. 8, 28; A/HRC/35/37/Add. 1 (2017), paras. 13, 17-18;
CEDAW/C/BDI/CO/5-6.
11
Article 6 of the Convention read with Article 3 of the Trafficking Protocol.
7
2