Human trafficking is the third most profitable illicit business in the world after drug trafficking and arms trafficking, with profits estimated at 32 billion dollars a year, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). In some countries, following the money not only makes it possible to identify those responsible for these crimes, it makes it easier to finance reparation funds for the victims.
This was the subject of the first activity of the FINTRATA project, a four-year regional project implemented by ASF Canada in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Colombia, financed by Global Affairs Canada’s security capacity-building programs.
On this occasion, the lawyer Marcelo Colombo, co-head of the Office of the Prosecutor for Trafficking and Exploitation of Persons and head of the General Prosecutor’s Office N°8 before the Criminal Oral Courts of the Federal Capital in Argentina, offered an introductory training session on asset investigation for human trafficking to more than ninety people from the four countries of the project. In attendance were representatives of public institutions with competence in the identification of victims, investigation, criminal prosecution and punishment of human trafficking, including financial intelligence units, as well as civil society organisations.
This virtual workshop was the first of a series of activities that will seek to strengthen the capacities of justice actors to identify and represent victims of human trafficking through training sessions, workshops, awareness-raising campaigns, as well as to support prevention initiatives and actions at the state and civil society levels.
FINTRATA is a continuation of ASF Canada’s past and current interventions in Northern Central America through the completed project “Capacity building for criminal law enforcement of cross-border crimes committed against women, girls and other vulnerable persons in the Northern Triangle of Central America” and in Colombia with the project “No More Trafficking”. Through these projects, the need to promote initiatives that foster greater regional cooperation was identified.