Malta’s anti-trafficking efforts still lack muscle, US report says

The arrests of an organised crime ring of human traffickers last week came in the wake of yet another United States government downgrade of Malta’s efforts in meeting minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking.

Malta remains on the U.S. Department of State’s ‘Tier 2 Watch List’ in its annual report for 2023 – the same position since 2012 – which once again found that the government was not meeting minimum anti-trafficking standards despite “significant efforts to do so”.

The diplomatic language employed berates Malta for not demonstrating overall increasing efforts with previous years, despite having established a specialised trafficking investigation unit, a specialised anti-trafficking working group to guide coordination, and an additional hotline for victims to receive referrals to services.

In fact, the Trafficking In Persons report said the government had investigated fewer trafficking cases and initiated fewer prosecutions against suspected traffickers.

The U.S. report says sex traffickers exploit foreign national and Maltese women and also children, and labour traffickers exploit foreign men and women.

Women from Southeast Asia were profiled mainly as domestic workers, foreign women work in massage parlours, and women from Central and Eastern Europe, Russia, and Ukraine working in nightclubs were vulnerable to trafficking.

Refugees and asylum-seekers residing in Malta are also vulnerable to trafficking in the country’s informal labour market, including in the construction, hospitality, and domestic work sectors.

According to the US report, Malta had actually decreased law enforcement efforts.

In 2023, law enforcement initiated nine new investigations, compared with 12 investigations in 2022 and 16 in 2021. Seven investigations were for sex trafficking and two for labour trafficking. Six investigations remained ongoing from prior years.

The Attorney General’s Office (AG) initiated criminal proceedings against two suspects for labour trafficking in 2023, a decrease compared with six prosecutions initiated in 2022.

A previously acquitted labour trafficker was convicted on appeal from the AG in 2023, which included a significant sentence; this compared with one conviction for labour trafficking in 2022 and zero in 2021.

And according to the U.S. report, official complicity in trafficking crimes remained a significant concern, even though no investigations, prosecutions, or convictions of government employees allegedly complicit in trafficking crimes had taken place.

Perennial issues with rule of law and an understaffed police force also hampered prosecutions and convictions. Courts were overturning trafficking convictions on appeal for administrative technicalities. After the conviction of two traffickers in 2019, courts initially overturned the conviction in 2020 for failure to adhere to court procedure, and in 2023 overturned the conviction a second time because the case was tried in the incorrect court. Courts ultimately upheld the conviction of two traffickers in December 2023, via a plea deal, and sentenced them to significant sentences; an appeal from a third trafficker in a separate case was also upheld, which also included a significant sentence.

The report’s trafficking experts also believe untrained judges were dismissing cases or pursuing crimes with inadequate penalties when physical violence and injuries were not sustained by trafficking victims.

On the judicial front, it said anti-trafficking training for judges remained inadequate and courts continued to frequently overturn trafficking convictions on appeal for administrative technicalities.

It also said Malta did not report efforts to effectively enforce labour regulations to prevent recruitment fees charged to workers, which increase workers’ vulnerability to trafficking. And no concrete efforts to increase oversight and regulation of massage parlours were registered.

Victim protection

In 2023, Agenzjja Appogg, a government office within the Foundation for Social Welfare Services (FSWS) that provided national assistance to trafficking victims, identified 16 victims, while police identified two.

Of the 18 total victims, police formally identified six trafficking victims and the other 12 victims remained potential victims.

Of these victims, traffickers exploited nine in sex trafficking, three in both sex and labour trafficking, and six in labour trafficking, including one for forced labour, one for forced criminality, and four for domestic servitude.

All identified victims were adults – 17 women and one male – and foreign nationals.

In its 2021 report, the Council of Europe’s anti-trafficking committee GRETA stressed the government’s failure to convict traffickers, and the absence of effective, proportionate, and dissuasive penalties undermined efforts to combat human trafficking and victims’ access to justice.

In October 2023, the government established a specialised human trafficking investigation unit comprising four staff and a backup unit to assist as needed, but no trafficking-specific training was given to judges in 2023 despite sustained concerns related to gaps in judges’ knowledge of trafficking crimes

In a joint action with Europol in December 2023, the specialised trafficking investigative unit partnered with immigration authorities to inspect three locations in Malta. Five Nigerian women for immigration violations in a location known for commercial sex, but no potential victims were identified.

Experts encouraged separate inspections for the trafficking investigation unit and immigration authorities, as fear of deportation often deterred potential victims from engaging with law enforcement.

Police said they continued to screen for sex trafficking indicators among individuals in commercial sex, including conducting outreach at several massage parlours and a prison in 2023 – however, the lack of interpreters hindered their efforts, and no victims were identified.

There are concerns by civil society groups that police did not proactively identify trafficking victims in massage parlours, apart from a lack of oversight and regulation on the licensing of such parlours, which had a higher likelihood of sex trafficking occurring.

Additionally, the government decreased funding for prevention and continued to lack coordination among ministries.

In 2023, the government allocated €50,000 to the Human Rights Directorate (HRD) for prevention efforts, including continuing to draft a new anti-trafficking NAP and raising public awareness. This was a significant decrease compared with €300,000 allotted by the government in 2022, 2021, and 2020.

The U.S. report says that the government was still not addressing key gaps in prosecution or victim identification and assistance.

Fraudulent labour recruitment

Fraudulent labour recruitment remained a significant concern, with estimates of foireg nationals employed in low-earning vocations, increasing to some 100,000.

The Employment Agencies Act (EIRA) regulates labour recruiters but does not allow workers to be charged recruitment fees by employment or recruitment agencies, even though many agencies illegally charged such fees.

To address this, the government passed new regulations effective in April 2024, that gave the government the option to prohibit recruitment companies from operating if they charged a recruitment fee, withheld identity documents, or impeded freedom of movement and job transfers.

However, in a report published by the Auditor General in January 2024, the office concluded labour inspectors responsible for implementation of employment laws took a lenient approach toward compliance and did not effectively enforce the law.

The report also found applicable penalties were not sufficient to deter violators, which created exploitable gaps in enforcement.

Experts urged the government to enforce the law prohibiting fraudulent recruitment and recruitment fees charged to workers. Foreign workers and asylum-seekers could not change employers without prior government permission, as work permits were tied to a specific employer, which may have increased their vulnerability to trafficking.