La Strada, a non-profit organization aiming to prevent human trafficking in the Czech Republic, has released a report on the institutional measures available to combat the problem and offers several recommendations on how to best implement international standards in the country.

The Czech Republic has come under international criticism for the very low rates of prosecuted and sentenced cases of human trafficking, in spite of hundreds of media and research reports that indicate the problem exists. The La Strada study describes the institutional framework available for curbing trafficking in the Czech Republic, but explains that “no sentence has been passed for trafficking in human beings for the purposes of forced labor or other forms of exploitation.”

The report emphasizes the necessity to correctly identify cases of trafficking, especially those for purposes of exploitation outside the sex industry, which it cites as the most misidentified or underreported type of case. Due to the ambiguity of the definition, it says, most exploited victims, especially males outside the sex industry, were unable to self-identify as trafficked persons. The report concludes its findings maintaining that although the Czech Republic does have the necessary legal instruments to enable access to rights and services for trafficked persons, their practical application still proves inaccessible and ineffective.

Compiled from: Women’s United Nations Report Network, Human Rights Impact Resource Center, La Strada Czech Republic Report (24 February 2011)