Strengthening the Protection of Women and Children: Preventing and Combating Human Trafficking through a Victim-Centred Approach

Abstract

Human trafficking constitutes a serious violation of human dignity and fundamental human rights, disproportionately affecting women and children due to their particular social, economic, and developmental vulnerabilities. Despite the strengthening of national and international legal frameworks, trafficking continues to develop through increasingly complex recruitment networks, labor exploitation, sexual exploitation, forced marriage, online recruitment, and transnational criminal activities. This condition demonstrates that criminal prosecution alone is insufficient to provide comprehensive protection for victims. This article examines the strengthening of protection for women and children through a victim-centred approach that integrates prevention, law enforcement, victim protection, recovery, restitution, and reintegration. The research employs a normative juridical method using a statutory and conceptual approach. Legal materials are analyzed qualitatively through literature study to examine the relationship between legal protection, institutional responses, and victim recovery mechanisms. The analysis demonstrates that preventing and combating human trafficking requires stronger coordination between criminal justice institutions, government agencies, social services, law enforcement authorities, civil society organizations, and other relevant stakeholders. Legal responses should not focus exclusively on identifying and punishing perpetrators but must also address structural factors that increase vulnerability to trafficking, including poverty, gender inequality, limited educational opportunities, unsafe migration, and economic dependency. Within the victim-centred framework, women and children must be recognized as rights-holders rather than merely as witnesses or sources of evidence. Protection mechanisms should therefore guarantee access to safe accommodation, healthcare, psychological assistance, legal aid, identity protection, and other essential services while preventing secondary victimization during investigation and judicial proceedings. Particular attention must be given to children through the application of the best interests of the child and age-appropriate protection measures. Furthermore, victim protection should extend beyond rescue and criminal prosecution toward comprehensive recovery and sustainable reintegration. Restitution and compensation should constitute essential components of recovery, particularly where victims have suffered economic losses, unpaid wages, physical or psychological harm, and other consequences of exploitation. Reintegration should include education, vocational training, economic empowerment, family support, and measures preventing retrafficking. Ultimately, an effective anti-trafficking framework requires a shift from a predominantly perpetrator-centred model toward an integrated victim-centred system. Such an approach can strengthen legal certainty, institutional accountability, victim participation, access to remedies, and long-term recovery, ensuring that efforts to combat human trafficking produce meaningful and sustainable protection for women and children.