The conference, organized by Erbil-based NGO SEED Foundation and UKH’s Centre for Peacebuilding and Dialogue (CPD) brought head of Erbil’s anti-trafficking police Lt. Colonel Sardar Fadhel Yahya, SEED's Anti-Trafficking Programs Manager Nazhad Hussein, and UKH non resident fellow Dr. Abdullah Omar Yassen in conversation on the state of play of human trafficking in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region, gaps and challenges in addressing it, and the latest developments in combating the phenomenon.
Iraq is both a source and destination country for trafficking, with trafficking in the Kurdistan Region mainly being present in the form of forced labor, domestic servitude, sexual exploitation, forced begging, and organ trafficking. SEED Foundation currently runs the only private licensed shelter for trafficking survivors in the Kurdistan Region.
Erbil has taken several important steps in combating human trafficking, criminalizing it in 2018 and establishing anti-trafficking police units in all four provinces. Nevertheless, many government actors still lack specialized training to identify and investigate potential cases, as underlined by all panelists, with Yassen underlining the importance of raising awareness on the issue also among the staff working in airports and residency offices.
One of the main points stressed by the experts is that while the Anti-Trafficking Law, albeit not being perfect, constitutes an important step in the Kurdistan Region’s fight against the phenomenon, significant challenges arise when the time comes for the law to be applied by the judicial branch.
“Sometimes when we receive cases of human trafficking, we have a screening tool in our office to screen victims of human trafficking. We understand he or she is a victim of human trafficking, but when we refer them to the court, we see they have a different idea,” said Colonel Yahya.
“I think you have to create a safe environment for the victims to come forward. And if you, for example, treat them as a victim. That's the most important part,” said Yassen, echoing the same point. “Sometimes we look at the cases of sexual violence, prostitution, child begging, maybe we look at them as convicts, not victims” he added, referring to the fact that often sexual trafficking cases might end up being mistakenly categorized as prostitution cases, triggering the application of Iraq’s harsh anti-prostitution law, which heavily punishes both prostitution and prostitution brokerage.
In light of this challenge, the panelists all highlighted the importance of capacity building of law enforcement agents and judges, as well as other people involved in the identification and investigation of trafficking cases.
“I think the capacity building of the judges is extremely important to identify the cases. And I think a lot has been done. Perfect, but I think a lot more needs to be done,” said Yassen.
Training and capacity building of law enforcement and government officials was also highlighted by speakers as a main area in which civil society organizations such as SEED can provide support to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), in the arduous fight against human trafficking.
SEED’s Nazhad Hussein noted that “The KRG has the will to implement this law [Anti-Trafficking Law]. That's why we have six anti trafficking police units and two more coming from Safwan,” adding that nevertheless, despite the presence of political will, “This law [Anti-Trafficking Law] intersects with the other laws. For example, we have the anti-prostitution law in Iraq and the KRG. We have labor law, we have the misuse of telecommunications law, we have penal codes. So, if we are not very careful, we may mix them, we may end up prosecuting or punishing a victim, while they are a victim, because there is a very thin line between the definition of prostitution and that of sex trafficking.”
In June, the US State Department criticized Iraqi government efforts to identify and protect victims of human trafficking, saying the country does not meet the "minimum standards" of combating the crime.
The US State Department's Trafficking in Person report downgraded Iraq from Tier 2 in 2022 to Tier 2 Watch List in 2023, saying that despite "significant efforts" to comply with Trafficking Victims Protection Act standards, Baghdad had failed to do so.
Countries listed on the report's Tier 2 Watch List are states that have a significantly increasing number of victims of severe forms of trafficking and which are not taking proportional efforts to address them, or their government has failed to provide evidence of their increasing efforts to combat this crime compared to the previous year.