Focus area Trafficking in Human beings – research cooperation with the Principality of Liechtenstein

Research topic and roadmap

For more than two decades the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Fundamental and Human Rights (LBI-GMR) has been actively engaged in human rights-based research on trafficking in human beings. This includes research projects on a variety of topics, ranging from trafficking for the purpose of labour exploitation and corporate responsibility to issues of access to support and legal protection for trafficked children. The Principality of Liechtenstein has supported activities addressing trafficking and exploitation for a long time, as part of its international development cooperation. Moreover, in 2018, it launched the international initiative FAST (Finance against Slavery and Trafficking), aimed at anti-trafficking measures taken by the finance sector. Since 2019, there is a cooperation between the LBI-GMR and the Principality of Liechtenstein to support the research focus on human trafficking.

Research focus

• Research activities, inter alia, on trafficking of children (such as addressing the lack of access to compensation for trafficked children), digitalisation and human trafficking (on the growing importance of social media and open source evidence for victim protection and prosecution, for instance), human rights-based monitoring of trafficking in human beings;
• Strengthening capacity building and exchange between research and legal practice, promoting, for instance, the first legal Commentary on the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings, edited by the Institute (Julia Planitzer/Helmut Sax (eds), A Commentary on the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings, 2020)

Research method

For the implementation of the research activities, a wide range of approaches and methods is used, including instruments of basic and applied research, workshop activities and advocacy.

• Project Title: Focus area Trafficking in Human beings – research cooperation with the Principality of Liechtenstein
• Project Responsibility: Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Fundamental and Human Rights
• Project Team LBI-GMR: Helmut Sax (lead), Konstantina Stavrou, Hauke Benjes-Pitcz; associated experts: Julia Planitzer, Nora Katona
• Project Duration: ongoing/annually renewed
• Funding Source: Office for Foreign Affairs of the Principality of Liechtenstein
• Programme Line LBI-GMR: Human Dignity and Public Security