The Moroccan Annual national report of the National Commission responsible for coordinating measures aimed at combating and preventing trafficking in human beings has recently issued its 2022 report, which covers two years, to shed light on the increased trafficking of human beings in Morocco.
Increase in Human Trafficking
The first report of the National Committee shows that the number of cases of human trafficking in Morocco has experienced a remarkable increase, exceeding 200% for the year 2018 and 96% for the year 2019.
According to the report, the increase is due to efforts to spreading awareness regarding this phenomenon.
The number of people monitored has reached 585 between adults and minors, including 84 foreigners and 144 women.
The number of registered cases has also increased steadily from 17 cases in 2017 to 80 cases in 2018, reaching 151 cases in 2019.
In this context, the number of victims of human trafficking in Morocco has increased significantly over the past three years between alleged victims and victims of human trafficking.
This number reached 719 victims, the majority of whom are Moroccan adults, adding that the percentage of minor victims, male or female, remains high, reaching about 47.41%.
The number of male victims reached 414, and the number of female victims was 305, including 192 minors and 213 adults, with 536 Moroccans and 183 foreigners.
The report also notes that sexual exploitation is the most common form of exploitation for human trafficking in Morocco, with 283 cases, followed by exploitation of people who beg for money with 56 cases, then forced labor with 35 cases, in addition to the rest of the other forms of human trafficking.
For laws against human trafficking and judicial decisions undertaken in this regard, the report stressed a penchant to decriminalize certain acts or even make suspects eligible for mitigating circumstances.
About 40% being has been sentenced to less than five years, which is the specified period for misdemeanors.
Note that the majority of human trafficking crimes are felonies with sentences of over five years.
Most sentences handed down are custodial sentences, with a limited number of protection measures registered.
Challenges and recommendations
Since its establishment in June 2019, the Committee’s first report presents hence a set of information, data, statistics, and indicators that reflect the monitoring of the crime of human trafficking and efforts to address it.
In this regard, it has revealed several constraints that hinder the proper implementation of laws and policies related to this phenomenon.
The document underlined that one of the issues of laws against human trafficking is their “ambiguity” at the level of the judicial system. This ambiguity applies to the components that form the crime due to the multiplicity of its elements and similarities.
Considering the nature of the crime of trafficking in human beings and its diversity on a geographical, legal, or strategic level, constituting a clear and precise law would be daunting.
This observation confused the understanding of the intervening authorities on behalf of the executive and judicial instances and the identification of suspects and victims.
Another issue lies in the struggle to detect the crime of trafficking in human beings because it is an organized crime, given the nature of its planning and modalities of implementation.
Considering article 4 of the Law against Trafficking in Human Beings that stipulates that the state, within the means available, provides various services for victims of trafficking in human beings, issues related to procedural and logistical problems arise due to the ambiguity of a clear perception of the implementation of this Law.
The Law in question indicates that the state protects victims of human trafficking. It provides health care and psychological and social support, including temporary shelter and the necessary legal assistance for their integration into social life or their voluntary return to their country of origin or residence, if applicable.
The report highlighted the difficulty of establishing quality services and proper care options, considering the type of exploitation and its level.
Other issues are related to implementing measures put in place to protect victims, such as contact prevention or victim outreach.
Given the complexity of these crimes based on a group of acts that are criminalized as independent crimes, the document identified a disparity in the treatment of these crimes by courts.
The report underlines, in this sense, the need to revise the criminal Law to reconsider a group of offenses that carry more than one legal qualification, such as the offenses of exploitation of persons in prostitution or forced labor.
When combined, the means and the proposes of intended exploitation constitute the crime of trafficking in human beings.
The purpose is to overcome the dilemma of the different courts in adapting the crimes of trafficking in human beings by implementing specific and clear laws.
Regarding difficulty in identifying victims, the report recommends the need to enforce the development of a national strategy to combat human trafficking and establish a new national referral mechanism for victims of human trafficking based on different comparative experiences.
Noting the diversity of data and indicators related to this issue, the report underlined that figure of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, for example, differs from the figures provided by the Ministry of Justice or the General Directorate of National Security.
In this regard, the Commission called for the development of an accurate and unified national database to combat human trafficking.
Considering the lack of funds allocated to the Committee to facilitate the implementation of the tasks entrusted to it, the Committee also underlined the logistical difficulties it has encountered to implement its task efficiently.
Finally, the report underscored the importance of awareness-raising regarding human trafficking.
The Commission called to enforce raising awareness, build law implementation capacity, reach out to academia, develop practical guides, and other recommendations.
Note that the legal framework of the work of the Committee is endorsed under Articles 6 and 7 of the Law against Trafficking in Human Beings.
Article 6 stipulates the establishment of a national committee to coordinate measures to combat and prevent human trafficking.
Article 7 states a set of competencies entrusted to the work of the Committee, including “the preparation of an annual national report on the efforts made in the field of combating and preventing human trafficking and the obstacles and constraints related to this field. “
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