Europe’s reinterpretation of human rights fuels human trafficking

A group of European governments has submitted a joint political statement to the Council of Europe urging judges to interpret Europe’s main human rights treaty more narrowly. Framed as a push to speed up removals, the move prioritises deportation over protection. Further, it shifts asylum responsibilities, weakening the safeguards essential to escape exploitation, access justice, and recover. By recasting migrants as security threats rather than rights-holders, governments risk driving people underground, where criminalization and exclusion make exploitation harder to detect. From an anti-trafficking perspective, diluting universal human rights protections undermines prevention, protection, and non-punishment principles. As such, creating precisely the conditions in which modern slavery thrives. 

“Political gesticulation” can lead to real-life consequences 

In a coordinated move, 27 European governments are pushing for tougher interpretations of rights protected under the European Convention on Human Rights. Rights that are most often raised in migration and deportation cases. The bloc claims the move is necessary for public safety, national security and border control. But experts warn the consequences could be far more dangerous.

Speaking to PassBlue, Vincent Chetail, a Geneva-based migration law scholar stated: 

If we are starting by degrading human rights in deportation cases . . . it is extremely dangerous for our democracies, for the rights of everyone. 

Chetail warns that once governments treat human rights as conditional for politically unpopular groups, the erosion does not stop there. If protections can be weakened for migrants, other safeguards quickly become expendable. Because the Convention applies universally within a state’s jurisdiction, narrowing rights in migration cases ultimately weakens protections for everyone.

Narrowing interpretations leads to expansion of exploitation

The bloc is pushing for restricted interpretations of Article 3 which prohibits inhuman or degrading treatment, and Article 8, which protects family and private life. Advocates are concerned that this would make it easier to forcibly return people to unsafe countries. It also could make it easier to deport people to so-called “third-countries” under externalized asylum arrangements. 

These policies routinely expose people to conditions linked to modern slavery, including debt bondage, forced labour, sexual exploitation, and detention in abusive or unregulated facilities. By prioritising removals over protection, governments risk pushing migrants into precisely the situations traffickers exploit.

Human Rights Watch’s Judith Sunderland said: 

This push is fundamentally political, driven either by far-right parties directly or by mainstream parties aligning themselves with the far right on these issues . . . in a really wrongheaded attempt to . . . capture their voters.

However, the data undercuts this dangerous political narrative. In reality, the number of human-rights-based deportation appeals heard in the UK was miniscule. Yet migrants are repeatedly used as scapegoats to pander to the far-right voters. But for asylum seekers and other migrants—groups already at heightened risk of trafficking and modern salvery—the consequences are severe. Their safety hinges on whether the Convention remains a universal human rights backstop or becomes a flexible tool, tightened whenever migration becomes politically inconvenient.

No to prioritizing politics over protections 

Trafficked persons and people at risk of trafficking rely on legal human rights safeguards to escape exploitation, access justice, and recover. The political reframing of migrants as security threats rather than rights-holders doesn’t solve the problem. It just pushes people underground, making exploitation harder to detect. And by trying to externalize asylum responsibilities, governments are continuing to weaken important protections, for migrants and for us all.

Add your voice to Freedom United’s call for safe migration and strong human rights. Because when politics and removals are prioritised over protection and dignity, traffickers win—and people pay the price.