Photo: Safer Internet Day 2024: IPG/MAKS host national round table on use of digital evidence in child trafficking
On the occasion of Safer Internet Day 2024 and as part of their research activities within the EU-funded project DISRUPT, on Tuesday 6 February, the Department of Information Policy & Governance (IPG) within the Faculty of Media & Knowledge Sciences (MAKS) organised a roundtable on the topic of use of digital evidence in the prevention, investigation and prosecution of child trafficking.
Malta remains primarily a country of destination for trafficked persons, with labour exploitation as the predominant type of abuse, probably followed quite closely by forms of sexual exploitation. In spite of recent efforts to better co-ordinate the response against human trafficking, international reports still find Malta facing significant challenges when it comes to victim identification and prosecution.
Against this background, the aim of the roundtable was to understand the difficulties that practitioners are experiencing in collecting and using digital evidence as part of their efforts against Trafficking in Human Beings (THB) and identify further measures that may be necessary to come to their assistance.
The roundtable was organised by the UM Project lead for DISRUPT, Dr Aitana Radu, and co-hosted by Prof. Joe Cannataci, Deputy Dean MAKS and head of the Department of Information Policy & Governance.
It included representatives from all the key local stakeholders involved in the fight against THB, including the Malta Police Force, the Human Rights Directorate, at the Ministry of the Interior, APPOGG, the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit (FIAU) and the Office of the Attorney General.