The GRETA’s main findings and recommendations include:

• Reducing vulnerabilities to trafficking: The GRETA identifies asylum seekers, unaccompanied minors and other vulnerable children and young people, migrant workers, people in an irregular situation, people in prostitution or sex work, LGBTI people and Roma people among those particularly exposed to trafficking. It calls for targeted measures to reduce these vulnerabilities, such as ensuring adequate reception for asylum seekers, strengthening protection for unaccompanied and vulnerable children, reducing migrant workers’ dependence on employers, improving access to regularisation and raising awareness of trafficking risks among groups at risk.
   
• Identifying victims and ensuring access to the recovery and reflection period: The GRETA welcomes efforts to improve the proactive identification of victims but considers that further measures are needed, particularly for children and victims of forms of exploitation other than sexual or labour exploitation, including exploitation for criminal activities and begging. It also urges Belgium to ensure that victims in an irregular or precarious situation can access the recovery and reflection period in accordance with the Convention, with the requirement to break contact with traffickers applied on a case-by-case basis and with the protection of victims in mind.
   
• Providing adequate assistance and accommodation: The GRETA considers that all presumed and identified victims in Belgium should have access to appropriate assistance based on their individual needs, regardless of where the exploitation occurred and without assistance being conditional on cooperation with the authorities. It calls for sufficient funding and capacity for specialised support centres, including specialised accommodation for boys who are victims of trafficking in Flanders, as well as contingency planning for situations where the accommodation network becomes saturated.
   
• Strengthening investigations and prosecutions: While welcoming the significant number of investigations, prosecutions and convictions for trafficking, the GRETA calls for sufficient human, financial and technical resources for law enforcement, prosecutors and courts. It also recommends more proactive investigations into trafficking for criminal activities and begging, greater use of financial investigations and continued training for investigators and magistrates.
   
• Protecting victims and applying the non-punishment principle: The GRETA calls for the effective use of existing measures to protect victims and witnesses throughout criminal proceedings, including audiovisual recording of interviews and avoiding confrontation with defendants. It also urges Belgium to address social-security debts incurred by victims exploited under a false self-employed status and to strengthen awareness and training on the non-punishment principle among relevant professionals.
   
• Addressing trafficking facilitated by technology: The GRETA welcomes measures to improve children’s online safety, regulate online sex-work advertising platforms and conduct digital investigations. It nevertheless calls for greater public awareness of technology-facilitated trafficking, stronger digital investigative capacities and closer cooperation with internet service providers, social media and digital platforms.
   
• Improving access to legal assistance: The GRETA reiterates its concern about the limited access of trafficking victims to free legal aid. It calls for the eligibility criteria to be revised so that victims can benefit from legal aid throughout proceedings regardless of their financial situation, and for access to a lawyer from the point at which there are reasonable grounds to believe that a person is a trafficking victim.
   
• Ensuring effective compensation for victims: Although Belgian courts have issued a significant number of decisions awarding compensation, victims are rarely effectively compensated by traffickers. The GRETA therefore calls for the criteria for State compensation to be revised so that all trafficking victims, regardless of the form of exploitation, can access it, and for the existing rules on seizure and confiscation of criminal assets to be used more effectively to secure compensation.
   
• Strengthening the overall anti-trafficking response: The GRETA considers that Belgium should continue to improve coordination of policies and prevention and anti-trafficking activities, while ensuring that trafficking remains a priority within the criminal justice system.

For further details, please consult the full report above.