ABSTRACT
This chapter explains how the concept of the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) developed in policy and law over the past decade. It also examines some specific challenges that States, civil society actors, and International Organisations have faced in implementing and monitoring NRMs in practice. It draws attention to the need for better coherence and improved co-ordination between NRMs and existing national child protection systems and national asylum systems. The chapter demonstrates why taking a human rights-based approach to implementing NRMs is not only in keeping with the original NRM concept elaborated a decade ago, but is also essential to creating trust among the actors involved, and to securing the dual aims of the NRM in pursuit of both prosecution and protection. Following the adoption of the Palermo Protocol in 2000, many governments took a law enforcement approach to preventing and combatting trafficking. The EU Charter of Fundamental Rights clearly prohibits trafficking in human beings.
