Europol - Trade in abandoned children

The request was partially successful.

Dear European Police Office,

Under the right of access to documents in the EU treaties, as developed in Regulation 1049/2001, I am requesting documents which contain the following information:

documents, letters, minutes, email, phone logs etc, related to the decision to put Europol in charge of the issue of Trade in Abandoned Children.

Also, all documents related to Europol's activities in this domain.

Yours faithfully,

Arun Dohle

G24 EU & International Law, European Police Office

3 Attachments

Dear Mr Dohle,
 
With regard to the first point of your request below, ‘documents, letters,
minutes, email, phone logs etc, related to the decision to put Europol in
charge of the issue of Trade in Abandoned Children’, we find no documents
containing the information you request. Please note that this does not
mean you have been refused public access, but rather that the documents
you seek containing the specific information you mention are not present.
As a matter of clarification, Europol’s competence is defined in Article 4
of its legal basis, the Council Decision 2002/187/JHA (herewith enclosed)
and covers  ‘organised crime, terrorism and other forms of serious crime
as listed in the Annex affecting two or more Member States in such a way
as to require a common approach by the Member States owing to the scale,
significance and consequences of the offences’.
 
        
With regard to the second point of your request below, ‘all documents
related to Europol's activities in this domain’, we would like to inform
you that unfortunately your request is too broad and insufficiently
precise and it is not practically possible for us to satisfy it.
Therefore, we would like to invite you to reconsider the scope of your
request, by limiting it to certain events or time frames, or by indicating
further your specific interest, in line with the applicable rules on
public access as established by the Management Board, attached for your
convenience. Please find attached the EU Serious and Organised Crime
Threat Assessment (SOCTA) from 2013 which may orientate you in this
regard.
Thank you for showing interest in our organisation.
 
Kind regards,
 
G24 – EU & International Law
 

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Dear G24 EU & International Law (Europol),

Thank you for your request for clarification. Let me give it a try.

In the annex to the Europol Convention Trafficking in Human Beings is defined. It states: “traffic in human
beings means subjection of a person to the real and illegal sway of other persons by using violence or menaces or by abuse of authority or intrigue with a view to the exploitation of prostitution, forms of sexual exploitation and assault of minors or trade in abandoned children.

Hence, as far as I understand, the subject of trade in abandoned children is included in bilateral agreements between Europol and third countries.

I have a Europol report here, which i think is from 2000, on THB, and chapter 2.4.3. is about the trade in abandoned children for adoption (one of the ways in which abandoned children are exploited).
Unfortunately I only have the body of the report, but not the cover page, so no title, exact date et.

For my current research I am looking for documents that show why the trade of abandoned children was included in the annex of the Europol Convention. Some country must have suggested to include it. And likely with well documented motivations?

As for second point of my request ‘all documents
related to Europol's activities in this domain’:

- Scope: documents related to Europol investigations (including studies) into the exploitation children by means of the trade of children for adoption

- Timeframe: from 1999 until now.

I hope this helps.

Yours sincerely,

Arun Dohle

Arun Dohle left an annotation ()

Time Limit 27 July 2015

G24 EU & International Law, European Police Office

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Dohle,

Thank you for the clarification on your initial application. With regards to the first point thereof we would like to confirm that Europol does not have any documents concerning 'the decision to put Europol in charge of the issue of Trade in Abandoned Children'. As already explained in the reply of 17 June, this does not mean you have been refused access, but rather that the documents you seek containing the specific information you mention are not present.

With regards to the second point of your initial application concerning 'documents related to Europol investigations (including studies) into the exploitation children by means of the trade of children for adoption', we will process your request in line with the Management Board Decision laying down the rules concerning access to Europol documents, attached for your convenience.

Kind regards,

G24 – EU & International Law

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G24 EU & International Law, European Police Office

Dear Mr Dohle,

Europol has assessed your request and identified the following document possibly falling within its scope:

#507953 - Bulgarian / Greek Operation on trafficking of children for illegal adoption. Eurojust, 26 October 2010

I regret to inform you that access to this document cannot be granted. In accordance with the Management Board Decision laying down the rules concerning access to Europol documents (“the MB Decision”), access to a document or to parts of it shall be refused, inter alia, when the disclosure would undermine the protection of the public interest as regards the public security, the proper fulfilment of Europol’s tasks, investigations and operational activities of Member States, as well as the privacy of individuals, in line with Article 4(1)(a) and (b) of the MB Decision. The document contains sensitive information on operational activities undertaken by law enforcement authorities of two EU Member States as well as on their modus operandi and their cooperative relations. Consequently, the disclosure of such information would undermine the effectiveness of the investigations, and hinder Europol’s position as a reliable partner for the law enforcement authorities of the EU Member States, and other EU bodies.

Please note that you may make a confirmatory application asking Europol to reconsider its position within 30 working days of receiving Europol’s reply, in accordance with Article 7(3) of the MB Decision.

Thank you for showing interest in our organisation.

Kind regards,

G24 – EU & International Law

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Dear European Police Office,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of European Police Office's handling of my FOI request 'Europol - Trade in abandoned children'.

The replies given are not satisfactory.

The initial question was about Europol's mandate and competence in the trade of abandoned children. I am interested to access documents that justified including the trade in abandoned children into Europol's mandate.

As for the trafficking case related to the Bulgarian/Greek Operation on trafficking of children for illegal adoption, this case as such does not seem to fall under that definition.
Europol's 2005's Organised Crime report, shows that Bulgarian illegal adoption schemes concerns the sale of children by gangs. Not the organised trade in abandoned children. From my research I deduct that the 2010 Operation was about a similar case.

The trade in abandoned children (children "left" in residential care/"orphanages") is clearly a different matter. Such children are traded for multiple purposes, among which intercountry adoption (illegal and legal, but still falling within the trafficking/trade definition).

Considering the above, I would welcome Europol to reconsider its replies.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/europ...

Yours faithfully,

Arun Dohle

G24 EU & International Law, European Police Office

2 Attachments

Dear Mr Dohle,
 
With regard to the first point of your initial request 'documents that
justified including the trade in abandoned children into Europol's
mandate', we confirm that we find no relevant document. As explained in
our reply of 27 July 2015, please note that this does not mean you have
been refused public access, but rather that the documents you seek
containing the specific information you mention are not in our possession.
A request for public access, as per the EU legislation, and the Management
Board Rules governing access to Europol documents (‘MB Decision’, attached
for your convenience), as well as the case law by the European Court of
Justice, covers only requests for existing documents. This thereby
excludes the creation of new documents. It also excludes request for
information, which can be directed more generally to EU Bodies, however,
are not covered by the Public Access Legal Regime. If your interest is
however of a more generic nature, which it appears to be we would suggest
you to fill in a form for academic request, on our website at
[1]https://www.europol.europa.eu/content/co...
As regards the second point of your initial application, we understand
from your further explanation that it now covers ‘documents related to
Europol investigations (including studies) on trade of abandoned
children’, irrespective of the purpose. This modifies the scope of your
initial request which was limited to ‘documents related to Europol
investigations (including studies) into the exploitation children by means
of the trade of children for adoption' (see enclosed your email of 4
July). Consequently we will process it as a new public access request in
line with the abovementioned MB Decision.
Kind regards,
 
G24 – EU & International Law
 

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G24 EU & International Law, European Police Office

1 Attachment

  • Attachment

    COUNCIL DECISION of 6 April 2009 establishing the European Police Office Europol Europol Counci.pdf

    921K Download View as HTML

Dear Mr Dohle,
 
After internal consultation, we would like to inform you that Europol
holds no ‘documents related to Europol investigations (including studies)
on trade of abandoned children’, as per your request below. This does not
mean you have been refused access, but rather that the documents you seek
containing the specific information you mention are not present. Please
note that Europol’s mandate is to support the competent authorities from
the EU Member States in preventing and combatting transnational forms of
crime in accordance with Europol Council Decision (enclosed for ease of
reference). In particular, Europol provides operational and strategic
support to the activities of Member States in the field of trafficking in
human beings in relation to the various forms of exploitations as defined
in the Annex to the above-mentioned Decision:
 
‘trafficking in human beings’ means the recruitment, transportation,
transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use
of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception,
of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving
or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person
having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.
Exploitation shall include, as a minimum, the exploitation of the
prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, the
production, sale or distribution of child-pornography material, forced
labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or
the removal of organs’
 
Therefore documents in our possession do not address specifically
investigations (or studies) on the trading in abandoned children. As
already informed, a request for public access, as per the EU legislation,
the Management Board Rules governing access to Europol documents, and the
case law by the European Court of Justice, covers only requests for
existing documents. This thereby excludes the creation of new documents.
It also excludes requests for information, which can be directed more
generally to EU Bodies, however, are not covered by the Public Access
Legal Regime. If your interest is however of a more generic nature, we
would suggest you to fill in a form for academic request, on our website
at [1]https://www.europol.europa.eu/content/co...
 
Kind regards,
 
G24 – EU & International Law
_____________________________________________
From: G24 EU & International Law
Sent: 08 September 2015 17:30
To: '[FOI #2043 email]'
Cc: G24 EU & International Law
Subject: @EXT: RE: Internal review of access to information request -
Europol - Trade in abandoned children
 
 
Dear Mr Dohle,
 
With regard to the first point of your initial request 'documents that
justified including the trade in abandoned children into Europol's
mandate', we confirm that we find no relevant document. As explained in
our reply of 27 July 2015, please note that this does not mean you have
been refused public access, but rather that the documents you seek
containing the specific information you mention are not in our possession.
A request for public access, as per the EU legislation, and the Management
Board Rules governing access to Europol documents (‘MB Decision’, attached
for your convenience), as well as the case law by the European Court of
Justice, covers only requests for existing documents. This thereby
excludes the creation of new documents. It also excludes request for
information, which can be directed more generally to EU Bodies, however,
are not covered by the Public Access Legal Regime. If your interest is
however of a more generic nature, which it appears to be we would suggest
you to fill in a form for academic request, on our website at
[2]https://www.europol.europa.eu/content/co...
<< File: MB Rules on Public Access to Europol Documents.pdf >>
As regards the second point of your initial application, we understand
from your further explanation that it now covers ‘documents related to
Europol investigations (including studies) on trade of abandoned
children’, irrespective of the purpose. This modifies the scope of your
initial request which was limited to ‘documents related to Europol
investigations (including studies) into the exploitation children by means
of the trade of children for adoption' (see enclosed your email of 4
July). Consequently we will process it as a new public access request in
line with the abovementioned MB Decision.
<< Message: Re: @EXT: access to information request - Europol - Trade in
abandoned children >>
Kind regards,
 
G24 – EU & International Law
 

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