• Ensuring that a supportive environment is provided to applicants who claim to be victims of trafficking; • Understanding that asylum-seekers who are victims of trafficking may be in fear of revealing the full extent of their persecution and that this fear may have a gender dimension that needs to be taken into account; • Accepting that certain forms of trafficking may have a disproportionately severe effect on women and children and may, in fact, give rise to individuals being considered victims of gender-related persecution; and • Avoiding any overt or implied link between the merits of an asylum claim and the willingness of a victim to give evidence against his or her exploiters (paras. 45-50).163 3.5. MONITORING THE IMPACT OF ANTI-TRAFFICKING MEASURES The Trafficking Principles and Guidelines recognize the critical importance of monitoring the impact of anti-trafficking interventions to ensure they do not interfere with, or otherwise negatively affect, established rights. Guideline 1.7 encourages the establishment of mechanisms to monitor the human rights impact of anti-trafficking laws, policies, programmes and interventions. The same Guidelines also suggest that this role should be assigned to independent national human rights institutions – such as a national human rights commission – where these bodies exist.164 States have entrusted a national rapporteur on trafficking with responsibility for monitoring the national response.165 Independent monitoring is an important aspect of ensuring that laws, policies and practices do not infringe on established rights. However, those governmental agencies most directly involved in the trafficking response – including legislators; lawenforcement, prosecutorial and judicial bodies and victim support agencies – should also monitor their own actions and performance from a human rights perspective. The Trafficking Principles and Guidelines further note that non-governmental organizations working with trafficked persons should be encouraged to participate in monitoring and evaluating the human rights impact of anti-trafficking measures.166 Such monitoring should not be limited to the actions of the State but could usefully be extended to encompass the activities of the non-governmental agencies themselves – in particular, service providers and others directly involved with victims. The human rights impact of anti-trafficking measures is not just an internal matter for the State. Guideline 1.8 envisages a role for the United Nations human rights treaty bodies – all of which receive and consider periodic reports from States parties on a range of issues and rights that relate directly to trafficking. SEE FURTHER: • Demand for trafficking: part 2.2, sections 4.1-4.4 • Freedom of movement: part 2.3, section 7.4 163 On the gender aspects, see also UNHCR Gender Guidelines, and Cathy Zimmerman and Charlotte Watts, WHO Ethical and Safety Recommendations for Interviewing Trafficked Women (World Health Organization, 2003). 165 On the role of national human rights institutions in monitoring anti-trafficking interventions, see Asia Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Institutions (APF), Advisory Council of Jurists, Consideration of the Issue of Trafficking: Background Paper and Final Report (December 2002). 166 164 This mechanism is expected to become a European standard through proposed revisions to the 2002 Council Framework Decision on Trafficking. See the 2009 proposal for a new Framework Decision on Trafficking. For an example of NGO monitoring of government responses to trafficking, see Global Alliance against Trafficking in Women, Collateral Damage: the Impact of Anti-Trafficking Measures on Human Rights around the World (2007). COMMENTARY 93