Spain: Plan against Trafficking in Human Beings for Labor Exploitation
The Spanish General Commissariat for Aliens and Borders, in its area of competence regarding the prevention of labor exploitation, elaborated in February 2022 a Plan against Trafficking in Human Beings for Labor Exploitation and related crimes, which responds to the need to provide an adequate police response to this criminal phenomenon that attacks and seriously violates the Human Rights set forth in the Universal Declaration of Rights of the United Nations. The main objective of the plan is to set the guidelines for action and improvement of the effectiveness of the investigations carried out in this area by the different specialized units of the National Police.
In this sense, the release and safety of the THB victims is a priority objective of any police operation, on which the National Police focuses its efforts, and whose action also seeks to dismantle the networks, organizations and criminal groups engaged in this activity, by arresting and bringing their leaders and members before court, seizing their assets and dismantling the criminal structure in which they are integrated, in addition to promoting parallel investigations of assets or money laundering.
This plan, aware of the need for an effective international and inter-institutional cooperation and for a deeper and permanent training of police officers, sets the following objectives:
1.- To standardize the practice of police actions with the Labor Inspectorate.
2.- To improve the operational efficiency of police investigations.
3.- To unify criteria in the practice of inspections.
4.- To increase police actions in labor trafficking matters.
5.- To acquire, preserve and update information on labor trafficking.
6.- To facilitate the identification, release and assistance to possible victims.
7.- To dismantle networks, organizations and criminal groups dedicated to this activity and to arrest and bring their leaders and members to justice, as well as to facilitate the withdrawal of the cards (residence, work, visas, etc.) that they have been granted in Spain.
8.- To strengthen relations with the Labor Inspection, Social Security and Public Prosecutor's Office.
9.- To establish contacts and fluid relations with trade unions and other social actors related to labor trafficking.
10.- To set specialized police units trained in the investigation of this type of crime.
Thus, the actions to be developed in the different labor sectors in which this criminal phenomenon has a higher incidence according to the previous risk and situation analysis are: agriculture, fishing, construction and hotels and catering. All this considering that although any person can be a victim of THB, special attention must be focused on immigrant workers; workers in the underground informal economy; persons, groups or families at risk of social exclusion; people with physical or mental disabilities; unaccompanied Minors and minors in general; the elderly; people belonging to ethnic, sexual or religious minorities, etc.; and refugees and asylum seekers.