This year (2020), we celebrated twenty years since the UN member states signed the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons Especially Women and Children (Palermo Protocol), part of the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. To commemorate this event, the Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children, Ms. Maria Grazia Giammarinaro, together with an Italian Non-Government Organization (NGO), On the Road and the Municipality of Palermo, hosted a webinar with Civil Society Organizations and Academia that allowed for an open and frank debate on the implementation of the Palermo protocol. Some of our network members watched the webinar.
Mary Elizabeth Kirke IBVM, UN Province Representative Peru, said she “was very taken by the Alcalde of Palermo who spoke with such passion of the need to revise the Protocol from a Human Rights base rather that one of travel control which criminalizes people in great need of protection.” “They are persons, not numbers” he said.
Read Ailish Gaughan’s (Loreto UK student) reflection here.
