Maria Grazia Giammarinaro
Maria Grazia Giammarinaro has been a Judge since 1991. She first served as a Pre-Trial Judge at the Criminal Court of Rome, and as a Judge in the Civil Court of Rome. In February 2019, she was appointed Adjunct Professor of Human Rights Law at the Irish Centre for Human Rights, School of Law, National University of Ireland, Galway.
From March 2010 to February 2014, she served as the Special Representative and Coordinator for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). In this position she hosted the Alliance against Trafficking in Persons, a platform for consultation and cooperation including UN agencies, international organizations, and NGOs. From 2006 until 2009, she worked in the European Commission's Directorate-General for Justice, Freedom and Security in Brussels, where she was responsible for combating human trafficking and sexual exploitation of children. She drafted the EU Directive on preventing and combating trafficking in human beings and protecting its victims.
From 2001 to 2006 she was a Judge in the Criminal Court of Rome, dealing with serious crimes including violent crimes, drug trafficking and trafficking in persons. During this time she was also a member of the Equal Opportunity Committee at the National Superior Council of the Judiciary. From 1996 to 2001 she was the Head of the Legislative Office and Adviser to the Minister for Equal Opportunities. She drafted the Italian legislation on trafficking in human beings, judicial action against discrimination, and protection orders against domestic violence.
Judge Giammarinaro holds a degree in Italian literature and in Law, and worked for several years as a High School teacher before joining the Italian Judiciary.
Maria Grazia Giammarinaro was profiled for ATLAS by Alice Dieci who works as a counter-trafficking specialist for the United Nations. You can read more about Alice’s career and work at the end of this profile.
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What first motivated you to embark on a career in this field and what were your first steps?
I learned from my parents that politics should be inspired by the ideals of democracy and social justice. I first graduated in literature and became a teacher. Education was – and still is -, in my view, one of the best tools to help young people overcome cultural disadvantage and gender discrimination, especially with regards to girls. I was passionate about my work and went on to teach in high schools for eight years. In the meantime, I graduated in law and passed the Italian public competition to become a judge. I was fascinated by the commitment to justice, especially the field of penal justice. In addition, I needed a change, something that continuously pushed me towards new endeavours.
Today I am convinced that all my different experiences have been an asset. In fact, as a judge I have always taken into account what I have learned as a teacher: for example, that justice should not be too harsh toward socially marginalized young people, as it is relatively easy to fall prey to organized crime when cultural and material resources are lacking. At the same time, while working as a teacher, I also learned that justice must serve victims. For example, women and girls subject to domestic violence who do not denounce abuses, because of the related social stigma associated to it, should be entitled to reparations when they find the courage to report such crimes.
What were some high points in your career thus far?
In the late nineties, I was appointed as the Head of the Legislative Office of the Italian Minister for Equal Opportunities. It was the first time that the Italian government had established a Minister dealing with women’s rights. One day, unexpectedly, I received a phone call from Anna Finocchiaro, a judge like me, who had just been appointed as Minister for Equal Opportunities. She asked me to lead the Legislative Office and join her small group of advisers that included women with a high standing in the feminist movement.
It was an extraordinary experience, as we had to build national policies on women’s rights from scratch. In this context, we took the lead on policies against trafficking in women, making the Ministry for Equal Opportunities the coordinating body in this field. At that time, nobody really knew about trafficking, and nobody talked about it. Awareness about the existence and gravity of a human rights violation comparable to slavery came from civil society organizations, especially those running street units and supporting sex workers to protect their health.
Such organizations were members of a consultative commission we had established to better cooperate with civil society. They also had the benefit of alerting us to the ongoing changes and challenges in the complex world of street prostitution, which was increasingly affected by the growing migration flows from Eastern Europe, after the fall of the Soviet Union. We discovered that, on the streets of our cities, there were women in situations of subjugation, facing cruel retaliations from their traffickers if they tried to escape, which could result in cases of torture and other forms of ill-treatment and even extrajudicial killings.
I used to join street units and talked with women, who were often very young. When I realized the magnitude of the phenomenon, I decided to fully dedicate myself to the cause of preventing and fighting trafficking against women. I have always been convinced that the main issue was not prostitution as such. My feminist network included the Committee for Civil Rights of Prostitutes from which I learned that there are situations in which a sex worker can keep ownership of her/his life. Indeed, at the time, there were women, transgender men and transsexual persons selling sexual services without being exploited by a pimp. However, when organized crime from Albania and Eastern Europe started to invade the sex market, people working in prostitution became more and more subjugated. Therefore, my commitment was not against prostitution, but against slavery.
As part of my duties, I represented the Italian government during the negotiation of the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially women and children (Palermo Protocol), supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and this was the beginning of my international career. After rejoining the Judiciary in 2006, I had the opportunity to be a seconded expert to the European Commission, and subsequently I was appointed Special Representative of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) on combating trafficking in human beings. In 2014, I went back to my functions as a judge in Italy, and, simultaneously, I was appointed as UN Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children.
What are some of the challenges that you have faced in this journey?
Very often throughout my career, I found myself in contexts characterised by sexism and misogyny, although such behaviours were banned from a formal point of view.
I spent many years working in a predominantly male environment. For example, when I was the Head of the Legislative Office within the Minister for Equal Opportunities, there was only another woman in a similar position and –not surprisingly– she was covering a post in the Ministry of Education. In the weekly meetings of all Heads of Legislative Offices, it was always difficult for me to take the floor and get the attention of the audience, as my department was considered marginal by the “strong” administrations. I remember my mixed feelings of indignation and humiliation when some members were talking to each other during my interventions or were reading their papers without paying attention to me. Complaining was impossible, as this would have only produced derision, as if I were obsessed about a non-existing issue.
The only way to deal with this kind of sexist behavior was to strengthen my self-confidence, for instance by speaking loudly and clearly during my intervention, focusing on explaining the technical aspects of my legislative proposal, and calling on the intervention of the chairman when it was necessary, which was something he (always a male) had to comply with. Sometimes it worked out, sometimes not.
I had similar feelings on many occasions, and in many international fora, even where the principle of gender equality was formally mainstreamed, and therefore sexist behaviors were even more subtle. On many occasions, for example, I had a feeling of being excluded, in spite of my formal position, from informal, but essential, decision-making processes. Against the backdrop of this gender discrimination, I could do nothing. However, I have always been considered a reliable expert in my field, and this has been the main reason why I had an international career.
What is your advice for people –especially women– who are seeking to work in international law?
My first advice is to invest in building a solid professional, cultural and legal background. This competence will help you to be sure of your opinions, to explain and defend them with self-assertiveness and in a persuasive way.
Second, especially for a human rights advocate, it is important to systematically update the knowledge of national and international case-law, with a view to supporting innovative jurisprudence and launching or building upon emblematic cases. During my six-year mandate as UN Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, I constantly tried to highlight a feminist approach to anti-trafficking, and to shift from victimisation to agency of trafficked and exploited persons.
I found that a feminist approach is invaluable when I applied it to my personal experience. In the environment of international organizations, life is not always easy, especially for young women. Sometimes you feel that your competence is not adequately valued, that there is no room for innovative ideas, and that conformity is most appreciated. However, when you feel weak and isolated, remember that nobody can really deprive you of your freedom of thought, that there are other women feeling exactly as you feel, and that you can take action altogether. In general terms, my main suggestion to navigate the international environment is to make alliances, to cooperate with everybody ready to share experience and expertise, and to look for good partners wherever you can find them.
Finally, I suggest valuing diversity of experience. Even when your job opportunities are not what you were looking for, even when your plan A has failed, your plan B or C can equally give you good opportunities to work in various fields, and build a rich and complex background. Even if you have a feeling that you are spending energies to deal with something that will result in nothing, you should be aware that good work has always good outcomes, maybe after a certain time, and in ways that were not expected.
Maria Grazia Giammarinaro was profiled for ATLAS by Alice Dieci, who works as a counter-trafficking specialist for the United Nations. Alice is an international human rights lawyer with nine years of professional experience, both in headquarters and in the field, with the UN, civil society, academia, national human rights institutions and private law firms.
Most recently, she has served as a Human Rights Officer for the UN peacekeeping mission in Central African Republic and for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva, supporting the UN Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children, as well as in OHCHR country offices in Colombia and Venezuela. She also participated in various research projects on transitional justice and international criminal law. Alice holds an LLM from the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights and a Law Degree from the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia.