A Legal Analysis of the Contributing Factors to Trafficking in Women: Points of Strength and Weakness of the Recent Developments in Europe

The purpose of this contribution is first to build the legal connections between anti-trafficking law, gender and international refugee law. The paper will then move to “contributing factors” to trafficking and a) distinguish the root cause analysis from the contributing factors analysis; b) explain why the contributing factors analysis can be used as framework of investigation of the proposal of the European Commission for amendments to the EU Anti-Trafficking Directive, presented in December 2022, with the purpose of highlighting its points of strength and weakness. This contribution will identify four of factors: forced marriages, illegal adoptions, ICT, an “unsafe” migration framework. It eventually suggests that working on a safer migration framework in the EU is a key aspect for the prevention of this transnational crime.