ABSTRACT
The prevention of trafficking is a prioritized area of cooperation between European member states while prostitution policies are left to the individual states to decide upon. Common European policies have been developed against trafficking of human beings for sexual and labour exploitation. According to the European Commission of Justice and Home Affairs, trafficking differs from illegal migration as the migrant is further exploited in coercive and inhuman conditions on crossing the border. The European Commission has also financially supported the prevention and combating of trafficking in human beings and the sexual exploitation of children through projects like the STOP and the DAPHNE programmes. The issue of sexual exploitation of women has been on the political agenda for more than hundred years. The conventions were responses to moral panics of the time when it was believed that white women from Europe and the USA were kidnapped and sent as sex slaves to Africa and the Middle East.
