The European Commission launched a new call for proposals under the Horizon Europe programme titled “Fighting Crime and Terrorism 2022 (HORIZON-CL3-2022-FCT-01)”. Trafficking in human beings is a serious and organised form of crime that involves the criminal exploitation of vulnerable people, the goal of which is the economic gain. This crime is often cross-border and consistently the vast majority of its victims are women and girls, around one fourth of all victims being children. Around half of the victims are EU nationals within the EU. Trafficking can take place for various exploitation purposes, including sexual exploitation, forced labour, servitude, removal of organs, forced criminality (e.g., pickpocketing or drug trafficking). Trafficking in human beings is a grave violation of people’s fundamental rights and dignity, and is explicitly prohibited by the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. Understanding the nature, scale and costs of the crime is key to ensuring appropriate action at the European level to prevent the phenomenon.
Projects’ results are expected to contribute to some or all of the following outcomes:
- Security practitioners and policy makers are provided with an improved and more complete intelligence picture of trafficking in human beings, such as modus operandi, both offline and online, including the whole trafficking chain, cross-border dimension, new trends, relations with other types of crime, financial flows of the related profits, etc.;
- Enhanced ability of security practitioners to detect and identify organised criminal groups involved in trafficking in human beings, in collaboration with citizens or NGOs when applicable;
- Enhanced ability of security practitioners to detect victims of all forms of exploitation, taking into account consistent patterns, and identify victims at an early stage;
- Enhanced ability of security practitioners to prevent the emergence of organised crime networks related to trafficking in human beings, to disrupt the trafficking chain at an early stage, deter organised crime groups related to trafficking in human beings and respond to the threat of existing organisations, as well as their potential expansion via de use of social media;
- Improved strategies of cooperation applied by European Police and Border Guards Authorities in fighting trafficking in human beings and dismantling related criminal networks, while respecting fundamental rights such as the protection of personal data, and improved cooperation between European and origin and transit countries authorities;
- Better policy-making related to the fight against trafficking in human beings.
The deadline for applications is the 23rd of November 2022.
For more information, please visit the Commission’s website.
To learn more about current calls for proposals or Eurodiaconia’s funding events, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with our our Projects and EU Funding Officer Giorgia Signoretto at giorgia.signoretto@eurodiaconia.org.