Human Trafficking constitutes modern day slavery. Slave Trade, or people trafficking, proves to be a phenomenon that, despite legal and governmental reforms, international conventions, bilateral actions and international sanctions, flourishes more than ever before. Human trafficking presents a modern form of slavery which undermines human dignity, exercising psychological terror and physical violence on its victims.

Trafficking into sexual exploitation, forced prostitution

The act of trafficking in human beings can be divided into three major steps:

• recruitment and transportation of the victim,
• prompting or forcing this victim to engage in prostitution (forced prostitution)
• exploitation of the victim.

The German Criminal Code states as Forced Labour (§232b):

Who prompts any other person by utilising this person’s personal or economic predicament or helplessness arising from being in a foreign country, or prompts any person under twenty-one years of age to engage in any of the subsequent points shall be liable to imprisonment from six months to ten years

The activity of "begging" as such is not a criminal offense in Germany, as long as no city regulations are prohibiting it and no exploitation is present. "Exploitation of begging" only exists as a criminal act of its own since the legislative changes have been made in the field of human trafficking, throughout 2016. Exploitation of begging "is defined as a situation where individuals are forced to beg and give away their income, and if the perpetrators are taking profit of the economic or personal predicament of the victim and of the helplessness in a foreign country.”[1] The victims of forced begging have to face health hazards during their work, are often beaten up by the perpetrators or punished by deprivation of food. The victims have to sleep at places with very poor conditions, e.g. in condemned houses without heating.

According to the Directive 2011/36/EU, “the expression ‘exploitation of criminal activities’ should be understood as the exploitation of a person to commit, inter alia, pick-pocketing, shop-lifting, drug trafficking and other similar activities which are subject to penalties and imply financial gain.”[1]

Forced marriage is defined as a marriage in which one or both partners do not or cannot consent to this marriage. Forced marriage thereby derives from severe psychological pressure or physical abuse to force two people into marriage. In Germany, forced marriage is understood as serious coercion and is liable to prosecution since 19.02.2005.