Spanish authorities failed to investigate serious allegations of human trafficking made by a Nigerian woman. This is established by the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights, in which it was unanimously judged that there had been a violation of Article 4 (prohibition of slavery and forced labor). of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The case concerned a victim of human trafficking between Nigeria and Spain, who claimed that the investigation by Spanish authorities into her complaint of trafficking and sexual exploitation between 2003 and 2007 had been insufficient.
The victim managed to escape from her alleged traffickers and filed a complaint in 2011. Concretely, the ECHR observes that “no measures were taken during the first two years of the investigation, that the investigators did not followed the obvious lines of inquiry and that decisions were made.” The provisional case file in 2017 was superficial and insufficiently reasoned.
“These decisions,” according to the court, “demonstrate a blatant failure in the investigation of serious allegations of human trafficking, a crime with devastating consequences for victims.”
TV, a victim of human trafficking and forced prostitution, was recruited through a close family member, linked to voodoo practices aimed at guaranteeing payment of her “debt” and dissuading her from reporting traffickers to the police, a modus operandi that the European Court of Human Rights considers is often used by traffickers in Nigeria.
The ECHR, based in Strasbourg, is also convinced that she found herself in a situation of extreme vulnerability between 2003 and 2011, and that “the Spanish authorities themselves have always considered her to be a victim of human trafficking. human beings.”
However, the investigation carried out by the authorities “was deficient”, the European Court concluded: “First of all, although an investigation was officially opened in 2011, the most basic measures – the hearing of club officials , which Ms. TV said she was forced to work for — were not taken until 2013. No real attempt to identify the alleged traffickers was made until 2014, nearly three years after the filing of the complaint. criminal complaint. It is evident that the authorities failed to act with due diligence during the initial phase of the investigation.
Second, the court considers that the authorities “failed in their obligation to follow all obvious lines of investigation, although the complainant provided in her complaint a detailed description of the alleged events, in particular her arrival in Spain and her work. prostitute under duress from her acquaintance, C., and had systematically maintained her version of the facts throughout the procedure.
Concretely, the ECHR understands that “the authorities did not take all reasonable measures to clarify the circumstances in which the complainant, according to it, had worked at Club R”. He added: “Despite significant discrepancies in key statements from club executives – one saying it was not a hostess club, the other saying the opposite – no further questions was asked of the people concerned. The statements of these people were also not compared with those of C. regarding his work at Club R., and it is difficult to determine whether the authorities collected and examined other evidence about the situation at the club at the time of the events.
“The authorities also failed to investigate Ms. TV’s allegations regarding other clubs in which she said she worked between 2003 and 2007, nor did they compare Ms. TV’s statements with the court records of his two arrests in 2005, which could have corroborated his allegations. whose passport the police had confiscated and C. had provided her with a new one”, adds the judgment: “At no time did the Spanish authorities check with their French counterparts whether there was evidence that Ms TV had crossed the border with France, where border controls were carried out.
Finally, the Court considers that “the resolutions of the Provincial Court by which the case was provisionally closed were superficial and were not sufficiently reasoned. The resolutions were limited to surprisingly brief, one-paragraph conclusions and relied on unexplained assumptions about Ms. TV’s age. The Provincial Court based its findings on the plaintiff’s age assessment reports, without taking into account any other criteria. Indeed, the assessment of the complainant’s age was never compared with other elements of the file clearly demonstrating that Ms. TV was perceived as an adult, both by the police and by the doctors and members of the Apip-Acam Foundation. had helped her. »
Thus, the ECHR concludes that these judgments “revealed a flagrant failure to comply with the obligation to investigate serious allegations of trafficking in human beings, a crime with devastating consequences for the victims” and, therefore, that there is violated “article 4 of the Convention on Human Rights, relating to the procedural aspect. »
As a result, the Strasbourg court decides that Spain must pay Ms TV 15,000 euros for moral damage, as well as an additional 12,000 euros for costs and expenses.
