A/HRC/44/45 servants or sexual slaves, displaced persons, people fleeing conflict and/or people in situations of destitution are particularly vulnerable to exploitation during and in the aftermath of conflicts. The gender dimension of trafficking must be taken into account as women and girls are disproportionally affected in conflict and post-conflict settings, due to pre-existing marginalization and economic dependency, and gender-based violence stemming from patriarchal social norms, including limited access to resources and education, gender discrimination and domestic violence. 40. The Security Council has fully acknowledged trafficking as an integral part of the peace and security agenda. However, the Security Council’s approach has focused almost exclusively on trafficking as a security issue, and as a crime perpetrated in the context of terrorism, and reference to victims’ protection and support has been limited. The Special Rapporteur has noted with appreciation the progressive recognition of trafficking in persons as a form of conflict-related sexual violence, including through reports by the SecretaryGeneral. However, such recognition implies enlarging the area of necessary interventions in the field of victims’ protection, a task that has not yet been comprehensively undertaken. 41. However, women in conflict situations are not exclusively victims, but also agents of life-saving, peacebuilding and peacekeeping activities. A full integration of the antitrafficking and women and peace and security agendas in ways that centre on human rights is a powerful means to show the centrality of women’s agency and participation. The inclusion of a gender perspective in conflict prevention is also key for the development of early warnings and early-screening frameworks that include indicators of vulnerabilities, for instance in the context of camps for refugees and internally displaced persons. D. Moving from short-term assistance to social inclusion of survivors, including through their access to effective remedies 42. Protection does not end with identification and referral to the appropriate services, nor is it limited to the delivery of immediate and short-term assistance. Instead, it requires States to take robust measures that can allow trafficked persons to rebuild their lives, free from the threats of violence and exploitation, beyond the recovery and rehabilitation phase. Trafficked persons commonly face loss of self-esteem, marginalization and humiliation, which further isolates them from families and communities and increases their vulnerability, exposing them to the risk of being revictimized or retrafficked. Early support provided to them should therefore not only aim at simply removing them from their trafficking situation but should also ensure their empowerment and independence in the long term. The notion of social inclusion – which is linked to States’ due diligence obligations and to the right to an effective remedy – conveys the idea of a process, of which recovery is the first step, the ultimate goal being the full and permanent restoration of all rights that have been violated before and during the trafficking cycle. According to the basic principles on the right to an effective remedy for victims of trafficking in persons, the right to remedy should include restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction and guarantees of non-repetition and should reflect a victim-centred and human rights-based approach. 43. During the consultations that the Special Rapporteur held with various stakeholders, it emerged that compensation was one of the least implemented provisions of the Trafficking in Persons Protocol, due to a number of obstacles, such as deportation of migrant victims of trafficking, lack of residence status for victims, lengthy judicial proceedings, lack of firewalls between labour inspectors and migration authorities, lack of confidentiality and protection measures for victims and witnesses, criminal convictions hampering access to legal remedies, inversion of the burden of proof, and compensation being conditional upon cooperation with criminal proceedings and/or upon the possession of residence permits. The situation is particularly dire for child victims, who are the least likely to obtain compensation. Moreover, one of the structural challenges hampering social inclusion is linked to restrictive migration policies leading to mass returns and repatriations, including of survivors whom had already been integrated into the social tissue of destination countries. 11