Bearing in mind that a number of victims of human trafficking come from families experiencing domestic violence, including sexual violence, as well as the fact that the Law on Prevention of Domestic Violence (the implementation of which the Autonomous Women's Center has been monitoring for eight years) in Art. 4, provides for the application of Art. 24-27 on other criminal acts as well, including human trafficking, comments in principle were submitted on the proposed text of the Draft Law on Prevention and Suppression of Human Trafficking and Victim Protection.

The AWC pointed to insufficient compliance of the Draft Law on Prevention and Suppression of Trafficking in Human Beings and Protection of Victims with the Code of Criminal Procedure. It is about the protection of the victim that can be provided by the Public Prosecutor who manages the pre-investigative and investigative procedure, and which is impossible to provide without the provision that every presumed victim will automatically receive the status of a victim of human trafficking from the moment the Prosecutor makes a decision on conducting the investigation. Other deficiencies related to victim status were also pointed out (translation, the possibility of appealing the decision not to grant victim status electronically, etc.).

The Draft Law is not in accordance with Art. 25 and 26 of the Law on Prevention of Domestic Violence, in situations where human trafficking is linked to domestic violence. In those cases, the Coordination and Cooperation Group, chaired by a senior Public Prosecutor, should prepare an individual Protection and Support Plan for victims, which is binding for all meeting participants.

Regarding the composition of the Commission that makes a decision on the complaint, the AWC believes that it must contain provisions on preventing conflicts of interest, that is, that its members can only be citizens who do not act in any of the stages in the process of preventing and fighting human trafficking.

In the specific proposals for the Draft Law, it was proposed to improve Art. 26, amendment of Art. 31 paragraph 1, amendment to Art. 36 par. 2, amendment to Art. 46 par. 6, adding a new paragraph and supplementing the existing ones in Art. 48 par. 6, adding a new paragraph in Art. 49 and amendment of Art. 50 par. 2.

You can see AWC's comments on the Draft Law on Prevention and Suppression of Trafficking in Human Beings and Protection of Victims (in Serbian) HERE.