The European Parliament adopted the report ‘on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Directive 2012/29/EU on minimum standards on the rights, support and protection of victims of crime and replacing Council Framework Decision 2001/220/JAI’. This Directive, initially adopted in 2012, is now undergoing a review with the aim of correcting the deficiencies identified during its implementation.

Over 7 million children are deprived of liberty in the world for a variety of reasons. This report recalls that the deprivation of liberty of children is a form of structural violence that violates their human rights and has negative effects on their physical, mental, and social development. The report also calls on the EU and Member States to take action to reduce the number of children in detention, support third countries in developing effective child justice systems and alternatives to detention, and protect children in situations of conflict, migration, disability, or discrimination.

Human rights and environmental defenders, particularly women, are increasingly subjected to violence, perpetrated in an almost complete climate of impunity. The majority of this violence takes place in Latin America, with indigenous peoples being disproportionately targeted. Measures to address COVID-19 have hindered their work and facilitated violations of their human rights.

Almost ten years after the adoption of the Directive, Soraya Rodríguez was co-rapporteur of this report of the European Parliament in 2021, which analyses the obstacles to its full and effective implementation and offers specific recommendations to the Commission, Member States and other stakeholders. The final text of the report was of crucial importance for the preparation of the European Commission’s new strategy (2021-2025) on trafficking in human beings and for the proposed revision of the European Directive of December 2022.