An international meeting presents the project PHIT to study the psychological impact of human trafficking and improve victim assistance
Trafficking in human beings (THB), usually committed by organized criminal groups, has severe psychological consequences on the victims. The University of Barcelona is coordinating an international project to understand this psychological impact better, which has not been studied enough, and therefore improve assistance to the victims, in particular the women who suffered from TBH for being sexually exploited. Funded by the Directorate-General for Migration and Home Affairs of the European Commission, the project Psychological Health Impact of THB for sexual exploitations on female victims (PHIT) gathers twelve international partners. The first PHIT public presentation will be given at the Faculty of Law on April 4 with an international meeting that will count with the participation of prestigious researchers and professionals who work with victims of human trafficking.
Trafficking in human beings (THB), usually committed by organized criminal groups, has severe psychological consequences on the victims. The University of Barcelona is coordinating an international project to understand this psychological impact better, which has not been studied enough, and therefore improve assistance to the victims, in particular the women who suffered from TBH for being sexually exploited. Funded by the Directorate-General for Migration and Home Affairs of the European Commission, the project Psychological Health Impact of THB for sexual exploitations on female victims (PHIT) gathers twelve international partners. The first PHIT public presentation will be given at the Faculty of Law on April 4 with an international meeting that will count with the participation of prestigious researchers and professionals who work with victims of human trafficking.
The event, to be opened by the Dean of the Faculty of Law, Xavier Pons, and the coordinator of the project, Professor Markus González Beilfuss, will start with the speech by Enrique Echeburúa, from the University of the Basque Country, one of the main experts in the field of gender violence. Afterwards will be the speech by Joseba Achotegui, professor of the UB, and Miguel Lorente, professor of the University of Granada and former deputy of the Gobierno para la Violencia de Género (Government department for domestic violence). There will also be a conference by Xavier Cortés, head of the Central Unit of Trafficking in Human Beings of Mossos dʼEsquadra (Catalan police force), who will explain how organized criminal groups work at a global scale. Also, several roundtables will take place, with academicians from different European centers and members of NGO and administrations.
Professor Markus González highlights that “the psychological impact of human traffic has not been quite studied; all agents are aware of the problem and the need to work on it, but there is not enough knowledge or specialized resources”. González says that “we try to use knowledge and experiences from the field of gender violence but the phenomena are not the same”. “In fact, in THB there is complex trauma, but its content is not clear enough, mostly because there are cultural factors and heterogeneous processes of victimization” he concludes. The few studies on this issue stress the important presence of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder among TBH victims, although these concepts are too general to describe the range of the psychological impact of these cases.
Moreover, it has been proved that interventions by professionals like doctors, judges, or officials can be counterproductive if the victimʼs mental condition is not taken into account. Also, one of the aims of this project is the training for professionals who assist the victims, and share the best practices, as well as strengthening cooperation between NGOs and immigration services.
PHIT is the only project funded by the Directorate-General of Migration and Home Affairs of the European Commission on trafficking of human beings focused on the victims. In Spain, apart from the University of Barcelona, other participants are the Department of Home Affairs of the Generalitat de Catalunya and the NGOs APRAMP, Proyecto Esperanza and SICAR, all of them own protection housing for the victims released by the police.