Civil Society Organisations in Counter-Trafficking Governance: When Long-Standing Interactions
 Lead to Solid Partnerships

Civil society involvement in counter-trafficking governance has substantially evolved, and today reaches an unprecedented level. The present paper aims at discussing different aspects of their involvement and their unique position across multiple levels of governance: i) their role in drafting legal instruments; ii) their role in EU’s policy and iii) their impact in securing the rights of victims, using the example of the trafficked person’s right not to be punished. We highlight that civil society actors, at all multi-governance levels from the global to the local, play an integral role in securing an effective comprehensive counter-trafficking response.