Montenegro Urged to Compensate Human Trafficking Victims

Illustration. Photo: EPA/MLADEN ANTONOV

"The victims of trafficking are not given compensation, they should receive compensation for the damage done to them," Petya Nestorova, Executive Secretary of the Council of Europe's Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings, told BIRN.

"It could be material or moral damage, but sometimes they are physically abused and exploited and someone made a profit from them. But no one received compensation in Montenegro," Nestorova said.

GRETA's report on human trafficking in Montenegro said that out of 39 victims of human trafficking in Montenegro, nine filed a property claim during court proceedings, but none were granted compensation and all were told to bring civil cases.

It noted that there were no court cases in which the property of the trafficker was seized.

GRETA praised the government's decision to set up a multidisciplinary identification team to decide who is a victim of trafficking, made up of police officers, social workers, doctors and psychologists. According to the report, it led to an increase in the number of people identified as human trafficking victims.

GRETA warned that the number of identified victims does not reflect the real scale of the phenomenon, saying that the authorities must improve investigations into labour exploitation.

According to the report, most of the human trafficking victims in Montenegro are from the Roma community and neighbouring countries.

"There is a significant number of migrant workers coming to Montenegro from neighbouring countries like Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia and Albania for seasonal work in the summer. Some of them have irregular employment status and no social protection, and their salaries...