The criminal act of human trafficking as regulated under article 388 in the criminal code of Republic of Serbia

The criminal act of human trafficking is regulated under article 388 of the criminal code and it includes several different forms. The basic form of this criminal act involves, as possible alternatives, recruiting the other person, transporting, relocating, handing over, trading with other person, as well as mediating in the act of trading, hiding or keeping the other person. If the same person performs several of the above mentioned actions at the same time, this will be referred to as a single criminal act of human trafficking. For example, if the perpetrator keeps a person by hiding him in the back of his car, transports and at the same time transfers him across the border, then trades with him and hands him over to some other person in this act of selling he actually performs one criminal act of human trafficking. The basic form of human trafficking as a criminal act refers to an action which must be performed under threat of with the use of force by misleading or keeping a person in the state of misguidance; by abusing authorities, trust, relations of dependence or unfortunate circumstances of the other person; or by confiscating someone's personal identifications, as well as giving or receiving money or some other benefit. Apart from that, the basic form of human trafficking criminal act exists if the performed action is taken for the purpose of exploiting the passive subject's labor, forced labor; performing criminal acts as well as exploiting the prostitution or other kinds of sexual exploitation; beggary; pornographic use; establishing slavery or similar relations as a ground for human organs or body parts theft; or use in armed conflicts. The criminal act of human trafficking is most often performed for the purposes of exploiting the prostitution of the passive subject. Such exploitation exists when the material gain from the prostitution of the passive subject is taken by the perpetrator. It is possible therefore, though seldom in practice, that the perpetrator of criminal act shares the part of the profit with the passive subject. However, the criminal act is also present in the above mentioned case as well as in the case where prostitution did not take place. Exploiting the prostitution must be an aim in undertaking the action of performing this criminal act, and the occurrence of prostitution does not affect the existence of the criminal act and can only be considered relevant in determining the sentence.