When a community police officer can sit and chat with a migrant over coffee, trust will rise and crimes such as human trafficking can be more easily identified and solved. Some good examples of policing through local social events – and a football tournament – were shared in a University of Malta workshop on Friday morning to discuss how human trafficking operates here and how best to support survivors.
Police officers, along with NGO staff and volunteers, were among around 50 delegates at Uniting Forces: Collaborative Approaches to Combat Human Trafficking and Support Survivors was organised by the university’s Department of Information Policy and Governance and led by representatives from American anti-trafficking charity Our Rescue.
Trust and time matters. The third or fourth conversation at a series of events over food can let someone open up about their experience, or knowledge, of a crime. Likewise, simply saying “hello” or “is there anything I can do to help you?” brings down barriers that police uniforms can create in a person’s mind.
“If they see a lanyard, they see a certain thing,” one representative from Our Rescue remarked, “and it’s the police’s job to show they are not that.”
Likewise, even the smallest gestures – making eye contact, a wave, a smile, going to the shop with someone, letting their children play with yours – can help a person who has gone through trafficking to take the next step in their journey of recovery.
The event also heard of an example in Norway which suggests that good community policing starts online. Residents will recognise local police officers from social media posts and then feel more comfortable meeting officers when invited to in-person events.
Strategy
Malta’s first national strategy and action plan to combat trafficking, launched in January, reports low recorded numbers of trafficked persons (14 in 2022) and the real number – in a population of over 500,000 people – is expected to be much higher.
There is no doubt that many refugees, asylum seekers and other migrants are at risk and may not have the confidence, or contacts, for seeking help. A growing number of suspected cases involve people from South America and other European countries although a victim can be from potentially anywhere in the world.
Available statistics suggest that labour exploitation – especially in construction, hospitality, cleaning, domestic service and fishing – is the most common purpose of trafficking in Malta, followed by sexual exploitation. Trafficking can be easily denied as its victims are often non-Maltese and have limited influence, by not having a vote and perhaps already experiencing racism and xenophobia.
Following rescue, a victim can feel the shame of arriving in a country without being able to get a job (and send money home to their families as promised). Children of trafficking victims are unable to go to school in Malta if their parents have no official documents.
A formalised national referral mechanism, as promised in the strategy, would allow any frontline professional to identify a victim and ask for assistance. Attendees were agreed on the need for specific training for judges, to enable more cases to be brought forward to the courts.
Bringing law enforcement officials into every part of an NGO anti-trafficking project can help them to see it as part of their own work – a shared and positive effort to tackle this dark problem in our communities.
Three key quotes from participants stand out:
Poverty is the number one vulnerability.
Community is many things. It’s not just what you create here. It’s what you create for me here.
We are all migrants here.
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