Last week, the European Court on Human Rights  (ECtHR) found that the state of Spain has violated Article 4 (prohibition of slavery and forced labour) of the European Convention on Human Rights.

This judgement relates to a woman who was trafficked from Nigeria to Spain as a minor, for the purpose of sexual exploitation. She managed to escape her traffickers and filed a criminal complaint against them in 2011 with the support of the NGO Fundación Amaranta. She alleged the Spanish authorities that the investigation of her case between 2003 and 2007 had been inadequate. However, in 2017, her case had been dismissed.

When unable to claim justice in Spain, the victim filed the case at the ECtHR, with our member Amaranta and support of UK legal team led by barrister Parosha Chandran. This court found that the Spanish investigation did not take any particular measures during the first two years and that it had failed to pursue obvious lines of enquiry. However, the court now found that this decision has been insufficiently reasoned. The ECtHR concluded that they found shortcomings showed a disregard and a lack of effort to investigate serious human trafficking allegations. In conclusion, the Court determined that Spain’s inadequate implementation of crucial criminal law provisions, constituted a violation of its procedural duty under Article 4 of the ECHR.

In response to this judgment, Fundación Solidaridad Amaranta states  “We are confident that this judgment will reinforce effective access to justice for victims of trafficking by clearly establishing the obligations of States to develop diligent and proactive investigations based on prima facie evidence of trafficking. In addition, we consider that the Spanish State must repair the moral damage caused to the victim and ensure that this type of error does not happen again”.

The whole judgment can be found here.