US embassy cable - 05ROME3847

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 ROME 003847 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR G-TIP AMB MILLER 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL, PGOV, PHUM, IT, HUMAN RIGHTS 
SUBJECT: G-TIP AMBASSADOR MILLER'S VISIT TO ITALY 
 
1.  Summary.  G-TIP Ambassador John Miller visited Rome, 
Turin and the Vatican October 24-29 to discuss trafficking in 
person issues.  His meetings with government officials,  NGOs 
and victims reaffirmed that Italy has excellent laws to 
combat trafficking, but implementation depends on a mixed 
record of local cooperation between law enforcement and the 
NGO community.  While Nigerian prostitutes continue to top 
the list of victims here, there are growing numbers of 
Romanian and Moldovan and fewer Albanian victims.  Italy last 
year had the best record in Europe on victims' assistance 
programs, but pending budget cuts likely will reduce funds 
for social programs.  The NGO community is divided over 
proposed "clean streets" legislation to move now legal 
prostitution from the streets to individual apartments; while 
the bill makes street prostitution illegal for both client 
and prostitute, it will greatly complicate NGO efforts to 
find and assist victims.  Miller urged the Minister of 
Justice to extend collection of statistics on prosecution; 
the Minister of Equal Opportunity said that training police 
to recognize and appropriately treat victims was a priority 
but that it would take time to change old prejudices.  Miller 
was the keynote speaker at a well-attended Embassy 
Rome-Embassy Vatican conference. End Summary. 
 
2.  Ambassador John Miller, Director of the Office to Monitor 
and Combat Trafficking in Persons (TIP) visited Italy October 
24-29 to meet with Italian government (Minister of Equal 
Opportunity Stefania Prestigiacomo, Minister of Justice 
Castelli, Ministry of Interior Prefect AnnaMaria D'Ascenzo) 
and municipal officials in Rome and Turin, Vatican officials 
(septel), victims, NGOs and the Romanian Ambassador to Italy. 
 DCM hosted a dinner for parliamentary, Ministry of Welfare 
and IOM officials.  In Turin, Miller met with a roundtable of 
NGO organizations and later with law enforcement officials. 
Miller was the keynote speaker at a conference organized 
jointly by Embassy Rome and Embassy Vatican entitled "Joining 
the Fight Against Modern Day Slavery" (septel) and conducted 
numerous print and radio interviews. He was accompanied by 
his assistant Jennifer Donnelly. 
 
3.  There are approximately 20,000-30,000 TIP victims in 
Italy with 2,000-3,000 new victims moving in an out every 
year. Approximately 8-10% are minors.  The majority are 
prostitutes, but the Minister of Justice indicated there was 
increasing concern about victims of forced labor, 
particularly illegal immigrants in agricultural and the 
underground economy.  While there was a general sense that 
the trafficking problem was growing, there were no actual 
statistics to support this feeling.  There was agreement the 
problem was continually shifting; observers noted a decline 
in the number of Albanian prostitutes but an increase in 
Romanian and Moldovan victims and said that traffickers 
(primarily organized crime groups) were becoming more violent 
and increasingly sophisticated in their ability to move 
victims within and between countries. 
 
Protection 
---------- 
 
3.  Virtually all interlocutors praised Italy's Article 18 
legislation that provides assistance and a residence permit 
(similar to the U.S. "T" visa) for victims, although some NGO 
representatives complained that benefits were sometimes 
conditioned on cooperation for prosecution.  Eastern European 
prostitutes were more likely to cooperate than Nigerians. 
During its first four years (200-2004) under Article 18, 
1,359 women participated in social protection projects, 4,287 
received a residence permit, 5,865 received vocational or 
other educational courses and 3,734 received help in finding 
a job.  The majority of recipients were Nigerian (52%) 
followed by Romanian, Moldovan, Albanian and Ukrainian. From 
1999-2005, the Department of Equal Opportunity funded 371 
social projects implemented under a 70% national-30% local 
funding scheme through regions/municipalities and NGOs, the 
most active of which included: Caritas, ECPAT, PARSEC, On the 
Road, and ACLI.  Municipal efforts, including Rome's Roxanne 
Project and Turin's NGO Abele Group projects helped over 
50,000 victims between 200-2004. 
 
4.  Italy has yet to achieve full implementation of Article 
18, as it relies heavily on police identifying victims and 
referring them to NGOs.  In some cities such as Turin, there 
is model cooperation, an extensive network of support for 
victims and training for law enforcement officials.  Miller 
lunched in Turin with a group of victims (primarily Nigerian 
and Romanian) in a shelter funded by the city and run by an 
NGO.  In Rome, there are excellent programs such as the 
Roxanne Project, funded with national and city funds and 
operated by NGOs, but cooperation between police and NGOs is 
less successful. In Milan, NGOs are well connected to the 
official community, but a lack of political interest has 
stalled progress in cooperation.  Minister of Equal 
Opportunity Prestigiacomo conceded that the police do not 
always properly distinguish between illegal immigrants and 
trafficking victims.  She told Amb Miller that improving 
victim identification and police-NGO cooperation was a 
priority for Italy, but the law was only four years old and 
it takes time to change old habits and prejudices of police 
officers.  Officials at the Ministry of Interior said there 
were training courses for law enforcement officers and felt 
there was adequate understanding of how Article 18 should be 
implemented, but again implementation of training was not 
consistent throughout Italy. 
 
Prosecution 
----------- 
 
5.  During a meeting with Minister of Justice Castelli, 
Ambassador Miller praised the efforts of MOJ Statistics Chief 
DiSantis to collect national statistics on prosecution. 
Castelli noted that the slow pace of justice in Italy was 
responsible for discrepancies in the statistics between 
arrests and prosecutions but thought the latest data would 
show an increased number of prosecutions.  He said it can 
take 3-4 years to move a case from investigation to 
sentencing.  Castelli also acknowledged that Italy tracks 
cases, which can include multiple defendants on multiple 
charges, instead of individuals, so it can be difficult to 
assess numbers of actual traffickers brought to justice. 
 
6.  In Turin, Miller met with anti-mafia and city prosecutors 
and the leader of Turin's street police unit, all of whom 
cooperated well together and reported a high success rate in 
prosecuting traffickers.  A visiting Romanian prosecutor, 
whose trip was funded by an FBI program, joined the meeting 
and described his efforts to work bilaterally to shut down 
the cross-border slave trade.  Miller also met in Rome with 
the Romanian Ambassador, who very carefully praised 
Italian-Romanian TIP cooperation.  He said there were 
approximately 250,000 legal Romanian workers in Italy and a 
similar number "in the process of being legalized" but 
insisted that the Embassy was rarely called upon to intervene 
to protect Romanian victims.  It is unclear if he was aware 
of his prosecutor's activities in Turin. 
 
7.  The NGO community is divided over proposed "clean 
streets" legislation to move now legal prostitution from the 
streets to individual apartments. While the bill makes street 
prostitution illegal for both client and prostitute, it will 
greatly complicate NGO efforts to find and assist victims. 
They were particularly divided over the issue of punishing 
clients. 
 
Prevention 
---------- 
 
8.  The Ministry of Equal Opportunity funds NGO management 
and advertising for a toll-free hot line for victims which 
received 476,492 calls from July 2000-March 2005. 
Interestingly, the majority of calls were from citizens (not 
victims) complaining about prostitution or reporting 
information about victims.  The Ministries of Equal 
Opportunity and Interior, with IOM,NGOs and EU counterparts 
conduct training for law enforcement and judicial officers. 
At every stop, Ambassador Miller explained the SAGE program 
for re-education of clients and noted its growing success in 
the U.S.  NGOs were particularly interested in the program, 
but it would have to be adapted locally to recruit clients as 
prostitution is legal in Italy. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
SPOGLI