Child Trafficking Law Changes: 23 Years to Get Child Trafficking on the Agenda

“Why did it take 23 years, and five successive governments, to get child trafficking prioritised?” – ECPAT NZ National Director Eleanor Parkes

When media asked ECPAT NZ to comment on the Government’s proposed trafficking law reforms, I described them as worth celebrating but also “pretty basic” [i]. That phrase isn’t a criticism of this specific Government – after all, they were the ones to finally make the changes. Rather, it reflects how long it has taken successive governments – five successive governments to be precise, over twenty three years – to propose reforms that are essential, but far from revolutionary.

The proposed reforms to the Crimes Act 1961 (Crimes Act) include:

• Removing the requirement to prove coercion or deception when the victim is under 18.
• Making it explicit that consent is irrelevant when the victim is under 18 or when coercion or deception is present. [ii]

These changes bring Aotearoa into better alignment with international standards.

The internationally agreed definition for Trafficking in Persons was established by the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, Supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (Palermo Protocol). Aotearoa ratified this in 2002 under Helen Clark’s Labour Government, agreeing to bring our laws into line with the requirements of this international instrument, including the definition. We were in fact one of the first countries to ratify this Protocol, so it shouldn’t have taken this long to get here. What we needed was for child trafficking to be put a little higher on the political agenda.

The proposed changes are significant for Aotearoa, with real impact. They remove some of the biggest barriers to prosecuting traffickers and recognising child victims. For the first time, child trafficking cases have a greater chance of making it to court, with the most appropriate legislation being applied, and we may finally begin to see evidence and numbers that reflect the problem here in Aotearoa.

For children themselves, the impact is even clearer:

• A greater likelihood of being identified and recognised as victims rather than overlooked.
• A better chance of seeing justice served against those who exploit them.
• A pathway to obtain the data and evidence we need to design prevention and protection measures that work.

In terms of the technical complexity of the proposals, certainly all law reform takes parliamentary time and political trade-offs, but we’re not talking unusually complexity or contentious changes excusing a 23-year delay.

This highlights an uncomfortable truth: if these reforms represent a big shift for child protection in Aotearoa, but the execution is not technically complex, then what has been missing until now is political will and prioritisation across both Labour and National governments.

So why did it take so long to get through these fairly basic but important changes?

First, child trafficking has long been seen as a “foreign problem” rather than a domestic one. Aotearoa has often prided itself on being geographically isolated and relatively safe, which contributed to a perception that trafficking was not happening here in significant numbers. Because prosecutions were rare, politicians could downplay the issue and put it at the bottom of the policy agenda. But the absence of prosecutions has partly been caused by flawed laws, which due to inaccuracies set a far-too-high bar for evidence of child trafficking, and made it difficult to identify and charge trafficking when it did occur.

Second, successive governments did not view the legislative changes as urgent. Fixing the Crimes Act to align with international standards is a matter of common sense and not politically contentious – but child protection issues have rarely commanded the same level of political attention as law and order policies which seem to more directly target gangs, drugs, or violent crime. Trafficking reforms simply never rose to the top of the political priority list, even though New Zealand had committed internationally to making them.

Third, advocacy in this space has often been under-resourced. Civil society organisations like ECPAT NZ have been calling for these reforms for decades, but without consistent government buy-in or dedicated funding streams, advocacy efforts struggled to compete with higher-profile issues. It took a combination of cross-party support, external pressure, and the willingness of the current Government to act to finally break the deadlock, and take steps to bring Aotearoa in line with the commitments we made in 2002.

Ultimately, the 23-year delay reflects a combination of political neglect, misconceptions about trafficking in Aotearoa, and a lack of urgency to implement changes that many other countries enacted long ago. The result is that for 23 years, children in Aotearoa have lived without the full legal protections they were promised in 2002.

The good news is there are promising signs of momentum. Right now, there is cross-party support for addressing trafficking. As well as these proposals, there are two Members’ Bills before Parliament[iii], once from each of the major parties, and a Minister who is hopefully willing to take action. With this environment, we should be ambitious about further change.

In taking the proposed reforms forward, Aotearoa has a chance to get our legislative settings right. The changes need to include providing definitions for key terms in the relevant sections[iv] of the Crimes Act, such as “sexual exploitation”, and updating the structure of the section as recommended by prosecutors and trafficking legal specialists[v], including ECPAT Board member Rebecca Kingi. The law currently has further misalignment with the international definition and lacks clarity in areas, which risks it failing to reflect how exploitation actually happens, and can lead to cases of exploitation not being recognised as trafficking, and falling through the cracks

ECPAT NZ will keep pushing for change – because children’s rights and protection cannot wait another decade. The proposed reforms show what is possible when trafficking is prioritised. Now, let’s make sure that momentum continues.

References

[i] ‘Pretty basic’: Advocates urge further action despite trafficking law changes | The Press

[ii] Strengthening trafficking and smuggling laws | Beehive.govt.nz

[iii] Modern Slavery Reporting Bill

[iv] 98B, 98D Crimes Act 1961

[v] Crimes (Increased Penalties for Slavery Offences) Amendment Bill. Rebecca Kingi – New Zealand Parliament