A/HRC/41/46 16. During the expert consultations, the “remedial” component of social inclusion was highlighted, with strong reference made to compensation, which is one of the least implemented provisions of the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (the Trafficking in Persons Protocol). Compensation was discussed particularly in regard to North America and Europe, where significant achievements have been registered, thanks to the work of pro bono lawyers and civil society organizations.27 Important questions were raised in relation to compensation for moral damage and the lack of common criteria for calculating both moral and material damage for trafficking victims. Another challenge identified was related to the tendency to award “ready-made assistance packages”, on the basis of the assumption that survivors are unable to manage the money awarded. The Special Rapporteur is convinced that depriving trafficked persons of their agency perpetuates a paternalistic approach to anti-trafficking action that needs now to be challenged. 17. Several obstacles to accessing and obtaining compensation were identified. These included the deportation of migrants who were victims of trafficking due to lack of residence status, lengthy judicial proceedings, the lack of a firewall between labour inspectors and migration authorities, lack of confidentiality and of 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. 18. A good practice by the Federation of Agro-Industrial Workers, of Italy, was identified during the expert consultations. The Federation facilitates access to justice for trafficked persons, mainly in cases involving labour exploitation, by sensitizing public prosecutors and police authorities at the local level, as well as by supporting victims by providing them with free transportation and financial means throughout the duration of the legal proceedings. Another innovative advocacy action taken by the Federation is to sensitize Members of Parliament, including through activities in the field, about the need to change public policies. 19. Alternative avenues for compensation other than the criminal law pathway were also discussed, such as civil law and labour law. Private sector grievance mechanisms were also identified as a potential tool for assuring to victims their right to effective remedy. However, the Special Rapporteur is concerned that private sector due diligence efforts in this regard are not effective enough; furthermore, when identification of situations of extreme exploitation occurs, it often results in contracts with non-compliant suppliers being terminated, without any guarantee for workers to be able to seek compensation and find alternative employment. B. Challenges and promising practices regarding the social inclusion of trafficked persons 1. Structural challenges hampering social inclusion 20. In the current poisonous political climate, the main concern of many governments is to drastically limit or even block migration movements, with little attention paid to the human rights implications of such policies. 28 In this context, social inclusion is being seriously hampered by mass returns and repatriations, including of victims who had already been integrated into the social environment of destination countries, by accessing education and the job market, and learning the local language, among other things. On the other hand, civil society organizations monitoring the social inclusion of returnees in countries of origin have raised concerns about the special difficulties that returnees face when forcibly 27 28 See, for instance, the Human Trafficking Legal Center, in the United States of America. See also the La Strada “Justice at Last” project on compensation in Europe, at http://lastradainternational.org/about-lsi/projects/justice-at-last. A/HRC/38/45, para. 65. 7