La Corte EDU si pronuncia sulla perseguibilità dei reati commessi dalle vittime di tratta

The note to judgment deals with the case of V.C.L. and A.N. v. the United Kingdom (applications nos. 77587/12 and 74603/12), in which the European Court of Human Rights considered for the first time the relationship between Article 4 (prohibition of forced labour) of the European Convention and the prosecution of potential victims of trafficking. In doing so, the Court held unanimously that there had been a violation of Article 4 and of Article 6 (right to a fair trial), since, despite the existence of credible suspicion that V.C.L. and A.N. had been trafficked, neither the police nor the prosecution service had referred them to a competent authority for assessment. For its judgment, the Court relied on the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons (the so-called Palermo Protocol) and the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings. On the one hand the Court explored the definition of human trafficking, also relying on its previous jurisprudence (Rantsev v. Cyprus and Russia); on the other hand it provided an innovative analysis of the relationship between States' obligations and the possibility of prosecuting victims of trafficking. The present contribution focuses on the latter by stressing the importance of States' duties of protection, and in particular the mechanism of identification.