The official gazette publishes LO 13/2022 which adds to paragraph 4 of article 177 bis a new letter c), entry into force on December 22, with the following content:
“(c) the victim is a person whose situation of vulnerability has been originated or aggravated by displacement resulting from an armed conflict or humanitarian catastrophe.”
This amendment is the result of the incorporation into Spanish law of the recommendation of the Report [2020/2029(INI)] of February 1, 2021, of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs and the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality of the European Parliament, on the implementation of Directive 2011/36/EU on preventing and combating trafficking in human beings and protecting victims, urged States to establish severe criminal penalties for trafficking offenses.
The circumstances of the invasion of the territory of Ukraine by troops of the Russian Federation provide grounds for the adoption of the new law appropriately increasing the penalties (with a highest degree of punishment) foreseen for crimes of trafficking in human beings in cases of displacement by armed conflict or humanitarian catastrophe.