The conference “Eliminating Modern Slavery” took place on  the 5^th of March at the European Parliament  in Brussels.

There was a conference organised like a roundtable between institutions representatives (Mr Fabrizio Bertot MEP(PPE,I) from Italy; Mr Phil Woolas (Labour) Former UK Minister of State for Borders and Immigration, Mr Gaik Vartanean, Member of Socialist Party- Moldavia) NGOs (Ms Ariane Couvreur- Representative of ECPAT; April Foster- Representative of BreakingChainsNetwork), experts (Lucy Maule, Senior Reserarcher -The Centre for Social Justice) and public society.

It was an occasion for the European Countries to share feelings and opinions about the new migration viewed as slavery today. The presence of countries where normally people leave from and countries  where normally immigrants do arrive(Moldavia, UK, Belgium, Italy) gave us a global view of the issue.

The main problem is that people who leave their countries do it  with many expectations and hopes in their trip. The same hopes  are broken when they arrive and they face the reality. Reality made by prostitution, slavery, and human rights not guaranteed. The people involved in those human traffics are from any age, status and countries. Involved we see many children and young adults who should be protected because of being minors , but who in reality are not respected and treated as  human beings . The geographical position and the economic condition of some of the countries who are part of Europe are naturally putting them in the position of being “attractive” for the people who are unemployed and have no future prospective. The open frontiers are considered today a good opportunity which Europe as a continent is giving to everyone the opportunity to choose where to live and to grow up. But facing the crisis of today emigration is not a pleasure but is considered a sacrifice, sacrifice which normally is never satisfied not because of Europe doesn’t want but because conditions are not allowing it.

The  MEP Fabrizio Bertot (EPP, IT) underlined the importance of a more united  approach of Europe to face this problem. The Italian geographical position is putting Italy as the main gate to reach Europe by the Mediterranean sea.

The Lampedusa tragedy and the daily enormous number of immigrants and their poor condition is the evidence that a new immigration policy is needed. The presence of experts coming from UK underlines the necessity to have a more efficient identification system to understand how many and where people are moving to,  to help them and make their rights respected.

The Macedonian representative emphasized the necessity to have more control on the traffic of human slavery which involve a lot of  women   from east to Europe who are forced into prostitution.

The Belgium association BreakingChainsNetwork is trying  to support  women in Brussels who moved to the prostitution world. This should be  a campaign of enlightment of what is really happening before those women come to Europe. The ECPAT association also is involved in supporting victims of slavery due to migrations in Brussels, specifically child victims.

The necessity to act as a european entity as a whole  is considered also an emergency. A united Europe will allow to tackle criminality and avoid spreading of modern slavery because today the criminal world takes advantage on this issue.

The round table gathering different points of view and showing “both sides of the medal” is a clear message that communication and collaboration between countries is needed to face this emergency which Europe as a continent of free frontiers is facing.

Piera D’Arrigo, intern brusselsdiplomatic.com