III. Accountability: Access to effective remedies, protection and justice i. Accountability of States and UN bodies on strengthening monitoring and implementation of UN treaty body and UPR recommendations 34. States must be held accountable not only for the content of their laws and policies, but for their actual implementation. This requires rigorous follow-through on recommendations issued through the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) and treaty body processes, with clear timelines, measurable indicators, and transparent reporting mechanisms. At present, there is no consistently effective system to monitor whether States fulfil their human rights obligations in practice, and this weakens accountability for preventing and responding to child trafficking among stateless populations. 35. To address this gap, States and UN bodies should engage and take effective action to strengthen national monitoring frameworks and ensure independent oversight of implementation, including through regular data collection18 and civil society participation. In parallel, treaty bodies should intensify their scrutiny of statelessness as a structural driver of child trafficking, issuing more frequent and targeted recommendations, and systematically tracking progress on guaranteeing nationality for all children, identity documentation, identification procedures in asylum systems, protection, and access to effective justice and remedies. Only through consistent monitoring and sustained pressure can States be compelled to translate international commitments into real protection and justice for stateless children affected by trafficking. ii. Avenues for safe migration 36. States have a positive obligation to ensure that migration systems do not create or exacerbate vulnerability to trafficking. This requires establishing child-centred migration pathways that are accessible irrespective of nationality or documentation, implementing firewalls between migration enforcement and child protection, and ensuring access to legal identity, guardianship and basic services. In addition, States must establish proper identification systems and effective statelessness determination procedures to identify and protect children who lack nationality or whose status is unclear. 37. Safe migration avenues should provide legal certainty and continuity, including pathways to regularisation or nationality where appropriate, in order to prevent re-trafficking. The provision of such pathways and of robust identification and statelessness safeguards, is a key indicator of State accountability in preventing child trafficking among stateless children in mixed movements. iii. Anti-trafficking responses must holistically address statelessness as a root cause and structural driver of child trafficking 18 Only 6 out of 1723 UPR recommendations made on statelessness were received on data collection, monitoring and reporting. Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion, ‘Database on statelessness and human rights’, available at: https://database.institutesi.org/. 10