In this video, Saverio Tommasi, a journalist for the Fanpage newspaper, describes human trafficking and the work On the Road does every day in a sensitive and attentive way.

Trafficking in persons never stops. It thrives, it diversifies itself, it changes to meet the needs of different local and global markets and to counteract the law enforcement action. Human trafficking is a constituent part of it is intertwined or confused with other phenomena, including smuggling of migrants, irregular immigration, international protection, labour exploitation, forced labour, prostitution, begging. It camouflages itself in the urban landscape or it settles in the well-established places of exclusion, thus, contributing to creating a toponymous of marginalization that does not appear in any official map but it is clearly present in the work plans of the organizations providing support to migrants.

Since the early 1990s, human trafficking has gradually moved up the agendas of national, European and international institutions and organizations. Over the last twenty years, legislation, action plans, multi-agency referral systems, cross-sectoral interventions, operational tools, local and transnational memoranda of understanding, research, and budget lines have been put in place to prevent and fight trafficking and provide specialized support for thousands of women, men, boys, girls and children trafficked for sexual exploitation, forced labour, illegal activities, forced begging, organ removal. Yet, this does not seem to be enough. Human trafficking continues to be among the most lucrative criminal businesses and one of the finest mechanism of systematic violation of the human rights of its victims. Why, then, have the efforts made so far been inadequate to counteract trafficking in persons? What can be done to build effective strategies?

To answer all these questions, we organized Beyond the Midlands³, an international conference on human trafficking to discuss how to re-orient and improve the programming and the implementation of policies and measures to prevent and counteract human trafficking, and to support and protect potential, presumed or identified victims. Here you can find all the conference materials such as full videos, interviews and PowerPoint presentations organized by speaker. Enjoy!

Deceived, raped and reduced to slavery. The Nigerian girls trafficked in Italy for the paid sex market leave with the hope of a better life and find themselves without a chance to escape. But this is just the last painful stop on their journey.