Malta’s first national anti-trafficking strategy has been launched and will seek to better protect human trafficking victims, the bulk of who are exploited at work.

One of the measures proposed in the strategy seeks to explore the introduction of guaranteed compensation for victims with confiscated assets of their abuser used to pay for the damages they suffered.

The National Anti-Trafficking Strategy for 2024-2030 will equip Malta with more effective tools for the prevention of human trafficking, the protection of victims of trafficking and the prosecution of offenders.

Drawn up by the Human Rights Directorate,  it will contribute to strengthening a human rights-based, gender and child-sensitive, interdisciplinary, and cross-sectoral approach to combatting human trafficking, developing a system for the early identification of victims, and the provision of timely assistance to victims and their access to justice, including compensation.

The strategy will be implemented over seven years (2024 - 2030), with actions of its National Action Plan to be implemented over four years (2024 - 2027). For the first time, it brings together all stakeholders and creates a common understanding of combatting human trafficking in Malta and the roles of government bodies and civil society. 

The strategy is built on five strategic priorities:

• Strengthening the supporting anti-trafficking framework
• Ensuring targeted prevention and early identification of potential victims and persons at risk
• Increasing reporting by victims, effective investigation and prosecution of traffickers
• Comprehensive victim protection, justice and remedies
• Strategic partnerships at regional and international levels to tackle human trafficking

Strengthening victim protection

In terms of victim protection, it lays down that efforts will be made to improve victim identification and protection, strengthen the system of assistance to all victims (including potential victims) of trafficking, facilitate temporary residency permits, enhance legal assistance and free legal aid, and guarantee effective access to compensation amongst other things. 

The report outlines the human trafficking reality in Malta. According to the 2023 US Trafficking in Persons Report, in 2022, the police and Aġenzija Appoġġ identified 14 foreign trafficking victims (12 for the purpose of sexual exploitation and two for forced labour), compared to 18 victims identified in 2021.

According to the 2021 report issued by the Council of Europe Group of Experts on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings (GRETA)  the total number of formally identified victims of human trafficking in 2017-2020 was 44: five in 2017 (all women), and 35 in 2018 (13 men, 22 women, one child).

To date, the adult victims who were formally identified were foreign nationals, mainly from Ukraine and the Philippines, Nepal, China, and more recently from South America, including Columbia.

Four child victims so far

In 2018, the Maltese authorities formally identified for the first time a child victim of trafficking who had arrived in Malta in 2018 as an unaccompanied child and was subsequently sexually exploited. Furthermore, in 2020, three Maltese children were identified as victims of trafficking.

“In addition to these statistics on formally identified victims by the police, there are a number of potential victims of trafficking in human beings who have refused to report to the police and have been assisted by NGOs,” the report states.

During the period of 2017-2020, the predominant form of exploitation of the identified victims was labour exploitation (77% of the victims), followed by trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation.

The report noted that the direct link between obtaining residence permits and employment contracts in Malta via the Single Work Permit “seems to contribute to increasing the vulnerability of the migrant workers who are unlikely to report abusive working conditions because of fear of losing their residence permit which is tied to the work permit.”

Despite the fact that all third-country nationals are permitted to change employment without providing a reason or any other previous employment tenure, in practice, this does not seem to take place easily, the report said.

Parliamentary secretary Rebecca Buttigieg said that the government is committed to continuing to fight human trafficking with this strategy by implementing legislative and administrative action over the next 7 years. 

To achieve this, she said that an inter-ministerial committee has been set up to take the necessary action and make sure the strategy is implemented.

You can read the full strategy here: