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Doc. 9112
5 June 2001
A campaign against trafficking in children to put a stop to the east European route: the example of Moldova
Report
Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee
Rapporteur: Mrs Elisa Pozza Tasca, Italy, Liberal, Democratic and Reformers’ Group
Summary
Trafficking in minors and young people, notably for the purpose of forced prostitution or paedophilia, is an increasingly common phenomenon involving astronomical sums of money and paving the way for corruption. Moldova was chosen only as an example to highlight a drama affecting European youth and involving all countries of the Council of Europe, whether of origin, transit or destination.
Combating trafficking in minors requires, among other things, immediate aid to the least developed countries of origin, with a view to stopping the exodus of young people and facilitating their reintegration. At the European level, combating trafficking requires political resolve to deal with the issue and concerted measures to prevent and suppress trafficking in minors, as well as to inform the families and help them to reunite.
The Assembly calls on the governments of all 43 Council of Europe member states, inter alia, to establish national lists of missing children and a centralised Europe-wide register, and to set up special police services to protect minors and an advocate for victims at national and European levels.
1. Draft recommendation
1. Trafficking in minors and young adults is an increasingly common phenomenon and one that it is difficult to counter; although it is first and foremost a crime to be combated, it also has implications for immigration policy, the right to asylum, freedom of movement, economic and social policies, etc.
2. It is controlled by violent, powerful international criminal networks that use modern technological methods; it is an extremely profitable market involving astronomical sums of money and paving the way for corruption, even in the industrialised countries of Europe.
3. Trafficking is becoming a complex phenomenon because it is no longer solely for the purpose of sexual exploitation; apart from the development of paedophile networks, especially through the Internet, a probable trafficking in children’s organs is regularly denounced: child-bearing is also becoming a commercial activity and children are being produced more or less voluntarily to supply the illegal adoption market.
4. The number of victims, in particular minors, is of course unknown. There is no record of the number of children who disappear from institutions and the exact number of street children is also unknown. All of the observers concerned, including non-governmental organisations working in the field, report that the victims of prostitution coming from eastern Europe include an ever-larger number of increasingly young children.
5. These minors and young adults come mainly from east and central European countries. The origin and the number of emigrants alter as the new democracies open up and become more impoverished, owing to the difficulties involved in changing to a market economy. Violence is widespread; victims are often misled and subjected to coercion and it is no longer unusual for them to be raped and beaten, locked up or abandoned without identity papers and in a state of semi-slavery.
6. All of the countries concerned - whether of origin, transit or destination - are member states of the Council of Europe. It is therefore one of the international organisations that can do most to prevent this type of trafficking. If there is any genuine political resolve to address the problem of trafficking in minors, the Council must strive to ensure that the issue is not treated lightly; on the contrary, concerted action must be taken to rid Europe of the problem. However, European countries must also co-operate in tackling the causes, which means addressing the problems of poverty, social exclusion and emigration for economic reasons as well as combating the demand for trafficking, including the sex industry, sex tourism and trafficking via the Internet.
7. Moldova provides a telling example, even if it is not the only one. It has only been a member of the Council of Europe since 1995. It has been totally neglected by the main providers of international economic and financial aid and as a result is becoming increasingly impoverished. Its young people are emigrating in large numbers in search of a decent standard of living, often to find themselves on the streets and in the brothels of Europe.
8. The Assembly therefore invites the Committee of Ministers and its member states to stem the process of impoverishment and economic and social disintegration in Moldova:
i. by providing immediate assistance in conducting a population census;
ii. by providing aid, in particular financial aid - inter alia through the Council of Europe Development Bank - aimed mainly at providing more education, training and employment opportunities for young people and especially young women;
iii. by stepping up co-operation to help:
a. re-introduce free compulsory primary education for all children;
b. prevent children being abandoned, particularly by providing support for families so that abandoned children are adopted by Moldovan families and children placed in institutions can be returned to their families;
c. appoint a children’s ombudsman with the necessary independence and powers to ensure effective action;
d. set up a system providing a minimum level of medical care and social protection which guarantees people, and in particular families, access to health care and a minimum income.
9. The Assembly also recommends that the Committee of Ministers give more support to the efforts being made by non-governmental organisations in Moldova to develop their own potential and to inform young Moldovans of the dangers of trafficking with a view to preventing it.
10. The Assembly invites the Committee of Ministers to make the issue of trafficking in minors a regular item on its agenda and to instruct one of its members, for example the current rapporteur on equal opportunities, who is also responsible for the issue of trafficking in women, to report to it at regular intervals.
11. The Assembly asks the Committee of Ministers to systematically and regularly raise the issue of trafficking in minors at meetings with political leaders and decision-makers in the countries concerned, particularly Moldova.
12. The Assembly asks the Committee of Ministers to recommend that member states, including Moldova:
i. make trafficking in minors an offence that is not subject to statutory limitation, punishable as such and liable to prosecution, irrespective of whether or not the injured party has lodged a complaint, and enact criminal legislation that constitutes a genuine deterrent;
ii. set up a specially trained police service for the protection of minors;
iii. develop concerted measures to reduce the demand for trafficking in children and young adults;
iv. appoint a national advocate for victims of trafficking to give a higher profile to the commitment to fight this scourge and give victims and their families someone to turn to;
v. promote the idea of a European network of national advocates to improve the co-ordination of activities and share information and experience so as to decide on the best ways of tackling this problem;
vi. enact legislation that is designed to protect the victims of trafficking and which gives them, under certain conditions, the right to stay in the country legally and receive vocational training with a view to reintegration in their country of origin;
vii. compile a national list of missing children and young adults and set up a centralised, computerised register for the whole of Europe to help police forces and families find them.
13. Finally, the Assembly invites the Committee of Ministers:
i. to call on member states to step up both the efforts of the South-East Europe Stability Pact Task Force on Trafficking in Human Beings and the financial support given to various organisations such as the International Organisation for Migration and UNICEF, so as to strengthen concerted action in the fields of prevention and the repatriation and reintegration of victims;
ii. to reply to the European Parliament’s call for regular information campaigns on trafficking to be launched in conjunction with the European Union, non-governmental organisations in the different European countries and journalists from the press and other media.
II. Explanatory memorandum by Mrs Pozza Tasca
1. The motion for a recommendation (Doc. 8744) for a campaign against trafficking in children has been referred for report to the Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee and Ms Pozza Tasca, who tabled the motion, has been appointed rapporteur. In February 2001 she made a private visit to Moldova, a country that is in the limelight as far as trafficking in minors is concerned, but she could equally have opted to visit Ukraine or Russia or any other country confronted with the problem of forced prostitution and other forms of trafficking in children.
2. During its meeting in Paris on 12 December 2000, the Committee held an exchange of views with Don Cesare Lodeserto, who, in his Regina Pacis Centre in Lecce in southern Italy, cares for young victims of trafficking from central and east European countries. His foundation also operates in the countries of origin, for example in Moldova. The rapporteur also attended a hearing on prostitution held in Paris on 2 April by the Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men. She made an official visit to Moldova in May 2001, after the general election, and met, among others, the President of the Republic and some of the new members of the government (the programme of her visit is appended).
Trafficking: a multifaceted problem
3. In the French version, the term “traite” will be used solely to refer to trafficking in human beings for the purposes of prostitution. It is preferable, here, to use the term “trafic” in French, which has a wider meaning and is unfortunately more appropriate in view of the current situation1. Nowadays prostitution is often forced prostitution. Trafficking is the work of organised criminal groups. Most of the victims come from Albania, Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, etc. Whether they leave their country of their own free will or because they have been misled or subjected to coercion, these girls are stripped of their identity papers and often raped, beaten and reduced to slavery.
4. Trafficking is becoming increasingly common. The OSCE evaluates the number of victims of this trafficking from East to West at 200 000 a year. The countries of destination are mainly west European countries but also Turkey, Greece and Israel. Italy and Belgium are the most common destinations. There are allegedly 10 000 Moldovan girls, 30% of whom are under age, working as prostitutes in Italy, supposedly of their own free will.
5. A report by the French Senate in 1999 mentions that, according to the OCRETH (central office for combating human trafficking), French police checks identified 1049 foreign females from Eastern Europe, including 455 Czechs, 29 Moldovans, 265 Albanians, 63 Bulgarians and 43 Ukrainians. Out of a total of 4 400 victims of prostitution whose identity was checked in public places in 1999, strangely there were only 9 female prostitutes and one male prostitute under the age of 18! And yet everyone recognises that trafficking concerns increasingly young children, who are uninformed and therefore consenting. There are also a growing number of boys on the sex market.
6. The Moldovan NGO, Salvaţi Copiii, which works in close co-operation with the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and the OSCE in repatriating female victims of trafficking claims that 250 girls were returned to Moldova in 2000 and that the figure for 2001 was already 153 at 31 March! 27% of these girls were between 17 and 19 years of age and were returned to Moldova after several months, and in some cases several years. 20% of them fall back into the hands of traffickers.
7. 68% of these girls come from rural areas and 60% from orphanages or vulnerable families. It is not uncommon for them to have been sexually abused by a member of their family at a very young age. In addition to the physical and psychological after-effects of such violence and of prostitution, they often suffer from sexually transmissible diseases and hepatitis.
8. Minors are often in the hands of international networks of traffickers, who sell them several times. A Moldovan girl bought for 150 dollars in Moldova is resold for 5 000 dollars in Italy. There is a rapid turnover in the individual countries; the victims of prostitution do not, in principle, stay longer than three months in a given country, thus avoiding any proper check on their age - their identity papers are seldom genuine.
9. Mobile phones and the Internet mean that procurers no longer necessarily reside in the country in question and cannot therefore be prosecuted. The market is a very profitable one that lends itself to corruption, even in our developed countries; a prostitute in France brings in an average of 1 500 francs a day. According to the OSCE, most young girls in the brothels and bars in the Balkans are Moldovan. 82 young Moldovans are allegedly victims of forced prostitution in Macedonia.
10. Trafficking in minors exists not only for the purpose of prostitution but also for the purposes of paedophilia, domestic slavery and organ trafficking. It appears that minors, especially those living in institutions, disappear in all the countries of origin. The general indifference to the disappearance of some ten under-age mentally handicapped girls in the Yonne département in France shows that developed countries are not exempt from such scandals. This past winter a paedophile network spreading as far as Russia was discovered in Italy; some of the children concerned had even been killed.
11. In her meetings with the Moldovan authorities, the Rapporteur was unable to obtain any figures concerning the number of children living in institutions. Street children have also become a widespread phenomenon in the countries in transition and Moldova is no exception to this rule. The exact number of street children is seldom known.
12. Another form of violence against women has been discovered, notably in Italy by the Regina Pacis Centre, ie paid childbearing for the purposes of illegal adoption or even organ trafficking. There is now a steady trade in the wombs of some of the most beautiful girls from east European countries: they can be sold for around 5,000 to 6,000 dollars.
13. Trafficking is closely linked to illegal immigration, the right to asylum, freedom of movement and poverty and is a complex phenomenon. The rapporteur noticed that visas were being sold at inflated prices in Moldova with the involvement of embassies from the West. It is also well known that customs officers and border police accept bribes.
14. Trafficking is a profitable business as it is easy to carry out and seldom punished. In Moldova, as in other countries, there is a legal vacuum: there are no laws making trafficking or the sale of minors a crime. The introduction of the euro will also make it easier to launder dirty money and transfer vast sums. It is also difficult to prevent trafficking because it affects countries’ social, economic and foreign policies and co-operation between them, particularly in the legal field.
The response of the international community
15. Trafficking in women and children has grown to such an extent and involves so much violence that it has now become a concern for the international community. There are some indications that it may become a political priority and that is to be welcomed. Various international organisations are beginning to draft texts on this subject.
16 For example, on 15 November 2000, the UN General Assembly adopted a convention against transnational organised crime, including two protocols: one on trafficking in human beings and the other on the smuggling of migrants. It was opened for signature in Palermo in December 2000. 123 countries and the European Union signed the convention.
17. The protocol on trafficking in human beings, in particular women and children, provides a definition of trafficking, and the various prevention measures advocated include asking contracting states to launch information campaigns and to take measures, through bilateral or multilateral co-operation, to reduce both supply and demand.
18. In the opinion of European Commissioner Vitorino, who is responsible for Justice and Home Affairs, all EU countries and applicant countries should ratify the Convention and the protocols to it as soon as possible.
19. Our Parliamentary Assembly has also taken up the issue: there was a report on trafficking in women and forced prostitution in 1997 (see Recommendation 1325 (1997) and Doc. 7785). The Committee on Equal Opportunities is currently drafting a report on domestic slavery and prostitution.
20. The most recent text on trafficking in children and young adults adopted by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe dates back to 1991 (Recommendation R (91) 11). However, in May 2000, it adopted a Recommendation (R (2000) 11) specifically concerning trafficking in human beings for the purpose of sexual exploitation. This text calls for a pan-European strategy.
21. In May 2000 the European Parliament also adopted a resolution “for further actions in the fight against trafficking in women”.
22. All of these international instruments advocate more or less the same measures. There seems to be a consensus. However, these texts and declarations of intent must not remain a dead letter; they must now be translated into action. Political resolve, at both international and national level, must give rise to specific measures.
23. The Council of Europe has the advantage of including among its members states from which the victims originate (Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, etc), countries of transit (Turkey, Greece and Albania) and countries of destination (for example Italy and Belgium). It cannot be said too often that the Council of Europe is an ideal place to deal with this issue and to translate the principles the organisation upholds into practice. The Committee of Ministers must take the bull by the horns and demand action, if necessary within the closed circle of the countries concerned.
The example of Moldova
24. Moldova has been a member of the Council of Europe since 1995. It is currently being monitored by the relevant committee of the Parliamentary Assembly. Moldova seems to be somewhat different from the other new members of the Council of Europe and to have been left on the shelf as far as the transition is concerned. The integrity of its territory has been called into question by Transnistria, over which it has no authority; Russian troops are to be withdrawn from this area in 2002.
25. The communists returned to power following the recent elections in February 2001. Despite the declarations of its leader, Mr Voronin, the communist party is known to be opposed to the key economic reforms required to attract foreign investment and international aid. Other obstacles include widespread corruption and the bureaucracy inherited from the Soviet system.
26. Moldova is one of the poorest countries in Europe. Ten years after the country broke away from the former Soviet Union and in the absence of clear ownership rights, its farming sector is in a state of neglect; there are also recurrent energy crises (Russia still supplies some 50% of its energy) and when salaries are actually paid they scarcely cover a third of average household needs. The average national salary is reportedly 16 dollars a month and some 90% of the population survive on less than a dollar a day, while 15% of the population are unemployed.
27. The only means of surviving for a third of the workforce has been to emigrate. The people we talked to in Moldova estimated that there were as many as 600 000 or 800 000, if not 1 million, Moldovans who had emigrated, usually illegally. The country is being drained of its young people. Some people claim that as many as 25% of the young people of Moldova have left the country. The total number of inhabitants in Moldova is unknown; the latest population census was conducted some ten years ago and the one that was scheduled for 2000 did not take place.
28. During his meeting with the Rapporteur, the President, Mr Voronin, stressed the profound economic and social crisis affecting the entire country. Children and elderly people were the prime victims, which explained why young people were leaving the country. Like other ministers in his government, he hoped there would be more bilateral labour agreements between his country and west European countries.
29. It appears that in Moldova, despite existing laws and other positive measures in favour of children - which are in principle in keeping with international standards - primary education is no longer free in practice and the number of illiterate children is rising. 13 000 children are allegedly no longer attending school. There is a shortage of teachers and textbooks; the schools are in a deplorable condition, often with no heating, etc. Children are suffering from malnutrition; hepatitis is endemic and tuberculosis is spreading. The water is undrinkable and health care is only free on paper. There is a law prohibiting children under 14 from working but it is not applied. A child can be adopted for 3 500 dollars and the demand for children comes mainly from Israel and the United States.
30. From the meetings she had, the Rapporteur learned that there was an inter-ministerial committee responsible for defending children’s rights and interests, but it appears that this committee has never held a meeting. An ombudsman for children has supposedly been appointed very recently but nobody could provide his/her name.
31. Moldova has huge debts. In 1999, foreign debts represented more than 105% of the GDP. The country allegedly still owes the monopoly gas corporation “Gazprom” 800 million dollars (732.1 million euros).
Financial aid for Moldova from various international financial institutions
Who is helping Moldova? The country seems to have sunk into oblivion.
32. It appears that the Council of Europe Development Bank does not yet have any projects concerning this country. Nor does the EBRD. Moldova has recently been accepted as a member of the World Trade Organisation.
33. Following privatisation of the wine and tobacco industry in October 2000, the World Bank and the IMF decided to grant loans to Moldova. Very recently, in February 2001, the International Monetary Fund granted the country a three-year loan amounting to some 142 million dollars to promote growth and reduce poverty; the objectives were to provide more jobs, to improve social protection by increasing the effectiveness and fairness of the social safety net and improving its economic viability and by improving access to and the standard of basic public services such as primary health care and education.
34. One glimmer of hope in this depressing picture of Moldova is that it reportedly improved its economic performance in 2000.
On-site international co-operation to combat trafficking
35. Co-operation is still in its infancy. Moldova is one of the Balkan states benefiting from the Stability Pact and is therefore involved in the Pact’s anti-trafficking task force. The OSCE is focussing its anti-trafficking activities in Moldova on fostering the ability of NGOs to counter the phenomenon by setting up a co-ordinated network of NGOs, providing them with training and assistance in preventive activities and offering direct help to victims. This work is being conducted in co-operation with the Moldovan authorities, the Salvati Copii NGO and the IOM.
36. The IOM, with financial assistance from Switzerland, the United States and the European Union, has set up programmes to improve prevention and make the public at large more aware of the problem, provide more assistance with reintegrating victims and improve the authorities’ capacity to prosecute traffickers. These programmes are implemented in the Balkan countries but also in Ukraine, Hungary, etc.
37. In Moldova, the IOM plans to distribute a booklet describing the realities of trafficking and the recruitment methods most frequently used by traffickers, and to launch a poster information campaign. Information leaflets will also be distributed in schools, on public transport, in employment agencies and discotheques, at border crossings, etc.
38. The Council of Europe, for its part, has held two information seminars in Moldova for NGOs on combating trafficking (November 1999 and September 2000). However, no funding has been earmarked for the continuation of such activities in 2001.
Conclusions
39. The Rapporteur’s decision to highlight the example of Moldova was taken as a result of the personal contacts she had made but her choice was also based on the fact that Moldova offers a good (if that is the appropriate word!) illustration of the trafficking problem; the country has been somewhat neglected by the West whereas greater assistance, particularly from the Council of Europe and its member states, could help it to become an example of good practice and show what needs to be done to put a stop to trafficking in minors.
40. If Moldova is to find its rightful place in the concert of European nations bound by the Council of Europe’s principles, the latter must provide the assistance the country needs to become one of its established members. A country must be able to develop with the help of its young people but it is now obvious that Moldova is being drained of its life force.
41. Moldova must ascertain the exact number of its inhabitants. Once this has been done, young people must be the main target of all co-operation and aid schemes (in particular those set up by the Council of Europe and its Bank). Loans and other economic aid, whatever shape it takes, must be aimed at stemming the exodus of young people, including those who are leaving the country of their own free will, and everything possible must be done to provide them with jobs, improve their education and vocational training and promote job creation, particularly for women.
42. The process of social exclusion and impoverishment must be brought to an end by helping Moldova not only to carry out the required economic reforms, but first and foremost to reform its system of social protection to provide a safety net, help the poorest sectors of the population and set up an effective system for protecting children.
43. There are other immediate practical measures that the Council of Europe can take if there is a genuine political resolve to deal with trafficking. For example:
- regularly place the trafficking issue on the agenda of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, as it brings together the countries of origin, transit and destination, and give the Rapporteur on equal opportunities dealing with the issue of trafficking (currently Ms Garajova, from the Permanent Delegation of Slovakia) special responsibility in this area;
- draw the attention of political decision-makers to the problem: the issue of trafficking should be systematically raised at political meetings with members of the government and parliament in Moldova (but also in the other countries concerned);
- continue and increase aid to Moldovan NGOs to help them develop their own potential. The Council of Europe should earmark appropriations for this purpose;
- invite states to compile a list of missing children (and young adults) and set up a centralised, computerised register for the whole of Europe to facilitate searches;
- launch regular information campaigns, in conjunction with the European Union, to warn the public and involve NGOs and journalists from the press and other media in the fight against trafficking so as to dissuade girls and boys from leaving the country, even of their own free will, and inform them of the dangers;
- introduce, at national level, in each state, an advocate for the victims of trafficking, for the dual purpose of showing that governments are clearly committed to combating this scourge and of giving victims and their families someone they can contact, and set up a European network of advocates to improve co-ordination between countries in combating trafficking;
- make trafficking in children a punishable offence and draw up criminal legislation that will dissuade would-be traffickers;
- draw up legislation that is designed to protect the victims of trafficking and which offers them, under certain conditions, the right to stay in the country legally and receive vocational training with a view to reintegration in their country of origin;
- and call on member states to provide financial support for concerted action by the various international organisations, so as to step up preventive action against trafficking and facilitate the repatriation and reintegration of victims.
ANNEX
Programme of the visit to Moldova from 6 to 10 May
by Mrs Pozza Tasca (Rapporteur for a campaign against trafficking in children - Doc. 8744), accompanied by
Don Cesare Lodeserto (expert) and Mrs Christine Meunier (Secretariat)
Sunday 6 May
Afternoon Arrival in Chisinau – check-in at the “Dacia” Hotel, rue du 31 aoűt
Monday 7 May
Meetings with :
8.30 am Mrs L. Gutu, Chairman of the Committee for Social Protection, Health and Family Affairs
9.30 am Mr V. Cristea, Deputy Prime Minister
11.30 am Mr V. Voronin, President of Moldova
12 noon Mr V. Draganel, Minister of the Interior and Mr Cobalas
1 pm Mr I. Morei, Minister of Justice
2 pm Lunch break
3.40 pm Mr V. Revenco, Minister of Employment, Social Protection and Family Affairs
5 pm Mr N. Tabuncic, Deputy Attorney General
Tuesday 8 May
Meetings with :
9 am Mr A. Potanga, Director of the Human Rights Centre
Mr C. Lazari, Ombudsman
10.20 am Mr O. Schneidratus, Deputy to the OSCE Head of Mission
Mrs A. Brashoveanu, Assistant, Human Rights, OSCE
11.40 am Mrs G. Barberis, UNICEF
12.50 pm Mr O. Andrysek, representative of the UNHCR
2 pm Lunch break
4 pm Mr S. Urechean, Mayor of Chisinau, and the members of the town-council
5 pm Moldavian NGOs
- Mr Vladimir Zolotuhin, President, and Mrs Matiniuc Maya, “Fonds des enfants de la République de Moldova”
- Mrs M. Ianachevici, Progamme Coordinator, “Salvaţi Copiii”
Wednesday 9 May
9.30 am Departure for Hinceşti and visit of the “Casa Internat pentru fete cu handicap mintal”
2 pm Chisinau: visit of the Centre for disabled children “Small Groups Home”
5 pm Visit of the Reintegration Centre for street children “Salvaţi Copiii”
8 pm Meeting with families of young girls who have disappeared
Thursday 10 May
Departure from Chisinau
Reporting committee: Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee
Reference to committee: Doc. 8744 and Reference No. 2515 of 29 June 2000
Draft recommendation unanimously adopted by the committee on 29 May 2001
Members of the committee: Mrs Ragnarsdóttir (Chairman), Mr Hegyi, Mrs Gatterer, Mr Christodoulides (Vice-Chairs), Mrs Albrink, MM. Alis Font, Arnau, Mrs Belohorská, Mrs Biga-Friganovic, Mr Bilovol (alternate: Stozhenko), Mrs Björnemalm, MM. Brînzan (alternate: Tudose), Cerrahoğlu, Cesário, Cox, Dees, Dhaille (alternate: About) , Dzasokhov (alternate: Slutsky), Evin, Flynn, Ms Gamzatova, MM. Gibula, Glesener, Goldberg, Gregory (alternate: Kiely), Gül, Gusenbauer, Gustafsson, Haack, Hancock, Herrera (alternate: Mrs Fernandez-Capel), Mrs Hřegh, Mr Hörster, Ms Jäger, Mrs Jirousová, Mr Kitov, Baroness Knight, Ms Lakhova, Mrs Laternser, Mr Liiv, Ms Lotz, Ms Luhtanen, Mr Manukyan, Mrs Markovska, MM. Marmazov (alternate: Baburin), Martelli, Marty (alternate: Schmied), Mattei, Monfils, Mularoni, Naydenov, Olekas, Ouzký, Padilla, Mrs Paegle, MM. Pavlidis, Podobnik, Popa, Poroshenko (alternate: Khunov), Poty, Mrs Pozza Tasca, MM. Provera, Rizzi, Seyidov, Mrs Shahtakhtinskaya, Mrs Smerecynska, Mr Smirlis, Mrs Stefani, MM. Surján, Telek, Mrs Terpstra, Ms Tevdoradze, Mrs Troncho, MM. Tudor, Vella, Mrs Vermot-Mangold, MM. Vos, Wójcik, Zidu
NB: The names of those members present at the meeting are printed in italics.
Secretaries to the committee: Mr Newman., Ms Meunier and Ms Karanjac
1 Translator’s note: this problem does not arise in English as trafficking is used for both terms.