Athens, 6 February 2007

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Dear Friends,

I welcome you to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

I would like to thank my distinguished fellow speakers for accepting our invitation. Today’s event concerns the UNICEF publication on global child trafficking: the cruellest and most reprehensible dimension of a global problem. That’s not to say that trafficking isn’t reprehensible in all its forms.

After all, we are talking about a problem that afflicts humanity and civilization; a problem that undermines security, development and human rights throughout the world.

And this is because the impact of trafficking is not limited to an estimated 2 million victims a year. A recent UN study based on a sample of 40 criminal organizations worldwide demonstrates the link between trafficking and other organised crime activities – mainly drug and weapons trafficking. With annual profits of $31 billion, trafficking is currently the third largest source of income for international organised crime.

But the problem goes deeper than that.

It goes beyond the nurturing of organised crime, because some of the money made in trafficking is laundered through legitimate business activities, such as tourism, employment agencies, agriculture and entertainment. And this makes it difficult to break up trafficking rings, exacerbating the problem. Because the more people there are who profit from trafficking, the greater the tolerance, silence and, by extension, complicity become.

And while a few people make a lot of money out of this, many pay the price: the victims and, of course, states.

Because in order to combat trafficking you have to have considerable resources at your disposal. You also need coordinated, systematic efforts on the part of the international community as a whole.

More specifically, in developing countries human trafficking adds to the long list of debilitating problems: poverty, illiteracy, AIDs and other epidemics, armed conflicts, authoritarian regimes.

And if this problem is so complex and difficult for adult victims to deal with, imagine what it is like for a child.

According to UNICEF, 1.2 million children fall victim to trafficking each year, usually for the purposes of sexual exploitation, forced labour and begging.

Children are easier prey than adults and are more likely to remain victims, particularly when the perpetrators come from their family environment or they become victims at a very young age. Children are not fully aware of the dangers. For example, they know much less about drug use, sexually transmitted diseases and how to protect themselves from such diseases. What’s more, the impact on a victim’s psychological health is much greater when the victim is a child.

If the data on trafficking in women is anything to go by, the situation may well get even worse in the future. Our experience thus far is that women victims increasingly become perpetrators, recruiting new victims in exchange for better living conditions. It would be a real nightmare for our society, for civilisation, for democracy, for human rights if at some point child trafficking became self-perpetuating, with children who were both victims and perpetrators: the future undermining the future.

And of course there is the major question of how the case of a victim who is also a perpetrator should be approached judicially and socially.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The publication being presented today looks at the global dimension of child trafficking: how many victims, how many countries are concerned.

And – even more importantly – how much of an effort remains to be made before trafficking rings cease to be one step ahead of state or international mechanisms for preventing and combating trafficking.

Our country and the Foreign Ministry have joined forces – on a national and international level – with all who are trying to combat the problem. Our interest and activities are focussed primarily on the three Ps: prevention, protection of victims, persecution of perpetrators.

The implementation of the National Action Plan for Combating Trafficking is in its fourth year. The Foreign Ministry is participating and we already have significant experience from efforts and actions taking place on all levels: international, regional and national.

The Foreign Ministry’s contribution includes:

       Strengthening cross-border cooperation

Through bilateral agreements, ongoing contact with embassies and collaboration with international organisations.

       Prevention and limiting of the phenomenon

Through development activities in third countries, funding programmes for victim support and information campaigns aimed at increasing awareness.

Beyond our general activities – and with regard to child trafficking in particular – the Transnational Action Against Child Trafficking (TACT) is being implemented by Greece in cooperation with Albania.

The salient aspects of this programme are:

       First, the targeting of children and minors.

       Second, the transnational dimension, which is strengthened by the agreement signed by Greece and Albania on assistance, protection and humanitarian repatriation for children who are victims of trafficking.

The agreement provides the institutional framework for long-term implementation of actions. At the same time, its expresses the will of the two states to confront the problem jointly.

The programme’s actions include social research and on-the-street work; locating and identifying victims; creating a framework for sheltering victims; social and family reintegration.

       The third basic element of this programme is multilateral funding and transfer of experience and know-how through cooperation between Hellenic AID, USAID, UNICEF and other international donors, as well as agencies of the two countries.

The objective is our implementation of this model of transnational cooperation with additional countries.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The basic conclusion of the UNICEF publication is that – good practices and initiatives notwithstanding – we cannot and must not relax our vigilance. As long as people continue to be exploited by people – and with children as the victims – all our words and deeds will not have sufficed. We cannot have a clear conscience, nor can we take pride in our achievements and civilisation.

I, personally, and the Foreign Ministry stand by every initiative that will ensure freedom and prospects for every person, today and tomorrow.

I would like to express my warm thanks to the head of Greece’s National Committee for UNICEF, Lampros Kanellopoulos, for this initiative. We share a single goal: ensuring a better and safer future for children the world over.

Thank you.