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10. Italian legislation and judicial competences in the fight against trafficking and smugglingserious proportions and there is no appropriate criminal legislation able to fill thelegal gaps left by the obsolete provisions of the Code. 130 Both proposals consideredthis situation unacceptable in the light of the obligations undertaken by Italy bothinternationally by signing the United Nations Convention and its Protocols andwithin the context of its membership of the European Union.These concerns gave rise to a series of provisions intended to modify those in theCode on slavery and to create the outright criminal offence of “trafficking inpersons”, thereby updating the substantive law to cover criminal phenomena thatwere growing increasingly widespread. During revision of the text, thesesubstantive provisions were refined and flanked by other procedural measuresintended to furnish the concrete means with which to combat trafficking. 131Besides the suppressive aspects, one notes, from the first versions of the text of thelaw onwards, the other components in the fight against trafficking in humanbeings: prevention, and measures to protect the victims. The provisions concernedwith these last aspects were still present in nuce in the text presented to theChamber in 2001, 132 but already evident was the intent to adopt an integratedapproach to trafficking, following the direction set by the United NationsConvention and its annexed Protocols (cf. supra § 6.1).In subsequent elaborations of the text, until its promulgation with the new antitraffickinglaw, the guidelines laid down by the Convention were transposed fromthe point of view of penalties and investigations, and also from the point of view ofprevention and assistance to victims.10.2 T10.2 THE NEW PENALTIESOne aspect of the reform that has most significantly affected the former scenario isthe array of penalties provided for crimes related to trafficking in persons. Theprovisions of the Code that, with difficulty and with contrasting case-lawinterpretations, had been used for this purpose were profoundly innovated in orderto improve the legal response to the contemporary dynamics of crime.130 The Supreme Court pointed out the problem regarding application with a case-law citation thatidentified the only rare occurrence of the crime of reduction to servitude, and mainly where the victims wereunder-age. For thorough examination of the various decisions, see infra Section II.131 See the text modified by the Senate on 28 February 2003 and the Report of the Commission (printeddoc. No. 1255-C), which introduced the following measures: sanctions against legal persons involved intrafficking, modification to the criminal procedure code in relation to competences, and the use of specialinvestigative techniques (interceptions, under-cover activities, state’s witnesses).132 Articles 4-6 in the text presented to the Camera on November 2001 (see printed doc. No. 1255-A),provide for the use of goods confiscated from traffickers to assist, re-socialise and protect victims, as wellas for the purposes of prevention. In the subsequent version of the text (see printed doc. No. 1255-B, n.1255-C, No. 1255-D), these measures for prevention and assistance were given concrete form with theestablishment of a fund for anti-trafficking measures and a special programme to assist victims consistingof cooperation initiatives, awareness-raising campaigns, and technical assistance to the countriesconcerned with trafficking.85