Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1525500
10 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 18 AUGUST 2024 NEWS MATTHEW VELLA mvella@mediatoday.com.mt Malta's anti-trafficking efforts EIGHT men and a wom- an were charged in August 2024 with trafficking wom- en from abroad for the purposes of prostitution in Malta. The arraignment took place after early-morning raids across Malta yielded 11 arrests, with eight Mal- tese men and one woman, and a Romanian man and a woman being arraigned the following evening. The defendants are: Luke Farrugia, 36, from Birkirka- ra who told the court that he was self employed in the maintenance and finishes trade; Clint D'Amato 36, from Gudja who works as a driver; Denzil Farrugia, 19, from Marsa a catering industry worker; Alexandra Suhov Procora, a 32-year old Romanian woman re- siding at St Paul's Bay, who told the court she was an accountant; Nicolae Efi- mov, 37 also Romanian and residing in St Paul's Bay; barber Kane Vassallo, 22, from Siggiewi; Luca Ema- nuele Corito, 21, from Isla, who refused to state his oc- cupation; Dylan McKay, 30, a taxi driver from Fgura and Gordon Cassar, a 44 year- old maintenance worker from Żebbug. Nine of the accused were charged with money laun- dering, promoting or set- ting up a criminal organi- sation, forcing individuals over 21 years of age into prostitution, holding per- sons against their will in a brothel as bonded debtors, and knowingly living off the earnings of prostitution and running a brothel. An investigation into a brothel by the police had revealed that four Colom- bian women who had been found there had also been trafficked. The women were issued with protection orders. Human trafficking ring bust Luke Farrugia (left) was one of nine charged with human trafficking THE arrests of an organised crime ring of human traffickers last week came in the wake of yet another United States gov- ernment 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 an- ti-trafficking standards despite "significant efforts to do so". The diplomatic language em- ployed berates Malta for not demonstrating overall increas- ing efforts with previous years, despite having established a specialised trafficking investi- gation unit, a specialised an- ti-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 gov- ernment had investigated few- er trafficking cases and initiat- ed fewer prosecutions against suspected traffickers. The U.S. report says sex traf- fickers exploit foreign national and Maltese women and also children, and labour traffick- ers exploit foreign men and women. Women from Southeast Asia were profiled mainly as do- mestic workers, foreign wom- en work in massage parlours, and women from Central and Eastern Europe, Russia, and Ukraine working in nightclubs were vulnerable to trafficking. Refugees and asylum-seek- ers residing in Malta are also vulnerable to trafficking in the country's informal labour mar- ket, including in the construc- tion, hospitality, and domestic work sectors. According to the US report, Malta had actually decreased law enforcement efforts. In 2023, law enforcement ini- tiated nine new investigations, compared with 12 investiga- tions in 2022 and 16 in 2021. Seven investigations were for sex trafficking and two for la- bour trafficking. Six investiga- tions remained ongoing from prior years. The Attorney General's Of- fice (AG) initiated criminal proceedings against two sus- pects for labour trafficking in 2023, a decrease compared with six prosecutions initiated in 2022. A previously acquitted la- bour trafficker was convict- ed on appeal from the AG in 2023, which included a signif- icant sentence; this compared with one conviction for labour trafficking in 2022 and zero in 2021. And according to the U.S. re- port, official complicity in traf- ficking crimes remained a sig- nificant concern, even though no investigations, prosecu- tions, or convictions of gov- ernment employees allegedly complicit in trafficking crimes had taken place. Perennial issues with rule of law and an understaffed police force also hampered prosecu- tions and convictions. Courts were overturning trafficking convictions on appeal for ad- ministrative technicalities. After the conviction of two traffickers in 2019, courts in- itially overturned the convic-