PART 2.2
of opportunities for legal, gainful, and nonexploitative labour migration (7.4, 7.5 and 7.7).
Note that measures to reduce vulnerability to
trafficking can be both direct and indirect. The
compulsory registration of births, highlighted in
Guideline 7, is one example of a measure that,
effectively implemented, is likely to reap a range
of rewards in terms of improving a child’s access
to his or her rights, including by reducing that
child’s vulnerability to trafficking and related
exploitation.193
This analysis is very important in the present
context because it acknowledges that poverty
limits life choices. It can lead individuals to take
risks and make decisions about their life and
their future in a way that they never would if their
basic capabilities were at acceptable levels. The
Explanatory Report to the European Trafficking
Convention explicitly recognizes the link between
poverty and increased vulnerability to trafficking:
It is widely recognized that improvement of
economic and social conditions in countries
of origin and measures to deal with extreme
poverty would be the most effective way of
preventing trafficking. Among social and
economic initiatives, improved training and
more employment opportunities for people
liable to be traffickers’ prime targets would
undoubtedly help prevent trafficking in human
beings (para. 103).
5.3. ADDRESSING INCREASES IN
VULNERABILITY RELATED TO INEQUALITY
AND POVERTY
A United Nations study on the link between
poverty and human rights identifies restricted
opportunities to pursue wellbeing as a defining
feature of a “poor person”. In this sense,
wellbeing refers not just to income level but to
basic capabilities that are common to everyone –
for example, being adequately nourished, being
adequately clothed and sheltered, being able to
avoid preventable morbidity, taking part in the
life of a community, and being able to appear
in public with dignity. In this understanding of
poverty, an important element is an inadequate
command over economic resources. If an
individual lacks command over economic
resources and this leads to a failure of the kind
of basic capacities referred to above, then that
person would be counted as poor.194
United Nations Children’s Fund, Birth Registration: Right
from the Start (March 2002). The right to birth registration
is protected in the Convention on the Rights of the Child
at article 7 (1) (“The child shall be registered immediately
after birth and shall have the right from birth to a name,
the right to acquire a nationality and, as far as possible,
the right to know and be cared for by his or her parents”).
193
See Office of the High Commissioner for Human
Rights, Human Rights and Poverty Reduction: A Conceptual
Framework (HR/PUB/04/1), pp. 5-12, especially page 10.
194
108
Principle 5 identifies inequality as an additional
factor contributing to vulnerability. Inequality
can relate to wealth, income or opportunity.
Inequalities that impact upon trafficking exist
within as well as between countries. In short,
trafficking inevitably involves the movement of
individuals from regions or countries of relatively
less wealth, income and opportunity to regions
or countries of relatively greater wealth, income
and opportunities.
Both poverty and inequality have strong gender
dimensions.195 In the context of trafficking,
the gender determinant can be particularly
detrimental. For example, as noted by the
Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination
against Women’s general recommendation
No. 19, poverty and unemployment force many
The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action notes
at para. 48 that “[i]n addition to economic factors, the
rigidity of socially ascribed gender roles and women’s
limited access to power, education, training and productive
resources” contribute to the disproportionate number of
women living in poverty.
195
RECOMMENDED PRINCIPLES AND GUIDELINES ON HUMAN RIGHTS AND HUMAN TRAFFICKING
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