A/HRC/38/45 I. Activities of the mandate 1. On 5 September 2017, the Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children participated as a panellist in the fifth informal thematic session of the global compact for safe, orderly and regular migration, entitled “Smuggling of migrants, trafficking in persons and contemporary forms of slavery, including appropriate identification, protection and assistance to migrants and trafficking victims”. She made her intervention during the panel discussion on “Appropriate identification, protection and assistance to migrants and trafficking victims”. 2. On 10 October 2017, she presented a thematic report to the General Assembly at its seventy-second session, with the Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, including child prostitution, child pornography and other child sexual abuse material. In their report, the Special Rapporteurs addressed the vulnerabilities of children to sale, trafficking and other forms of exploitation in situations of conflict and humanitarian crisis. 3. On 1 March 2018, the Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons convened an expert group meeting in Geneva on addressing trafficking in supply chains through voluntary standards and multi-stakeholder initiatives. The meeting focused on the enhancement of workers’ voices in the governance, monitoring and grievance mechanisms of these initiatives and the active participation of workers within. II. Methodology of the report 4. In order to gather first-hand information for the present report, on 12–13 October 2017, the Special Rapporteur conducted a thematic visit to Catania, Italy, to better understand the identification procedures at disembarkation places. She also went to Portugal on 1–2 February 2018, where she was informed of good practices for the identification of victims of trafficking for labour exploitation. On 26 March 2018, she exchanged information with the European Border and Coastguard Agency (FRONTEX) on its role in identifying victims of trafficking at external European borders and related human rights concerns. The present report is also based on submissions from partners and stakeholders. 5. On the basis of the above inputs, the Special Rapporteur acknowledges the inadequacy of the current screening tools and methodologies in effectively identifying potential victims and indicators of vulnerability to trafficking. Responses to the call for inputs were abundant, though geographically limited and predominately from Europe, which reflects the current dialogue on migration. It is worrisome that the lack of responses from certain regions might also be due to the shrinking of civil society space. The Special Rapporteur is grateful to organizations that provided feedback to the report. She thanks the Office of the Prosecutor in Catania, the Portuguese National Rapporteur on trafficking in persons and FRONTEX for their role in organizing the three thematic visits, whose findings have enriched the report. III. Introduction 6. While a clear legal distinction between smuggling and trafficking has been defined in the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (the Palermo Protocol), the differences between the two crimes are increasingly blurred in mixed migration movements. 7. The Special Rapporteur considers that trafficking in persons, especially women and children, is primarily a human rights violation, and often interlinked with mixed migration movements, encompassing various categories of persons on the move, including refugees, asylum seekers and migrants travelling, mostly in an irregular manner, along similar routes, 3