Euro-Mediterranean Anti-trafficking Project
(PI110117)

 

  The project  will be implemented by Caritas South-East Europe Coverage: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Kosovo, Romania, Slovenia, Turkey, Ukraine, Lebanon and Armenia, Morocco  in cooperation with Caritas France. 
Through this 2 year project we aim to strengthen the network of Caritas in Eastern Europe in order to face the problem of trafficking by capacity building of  the staff through encouraging visits, trainings, common activities and exchange of best practice. Caritas staff will be involved in this project, who for the period 2011-2013 aim to reduce or eliminate the trafficking of human beings and provide concrete assistant to the victims or to the persons in risk of trafficking.

  The project also facilitated to enhance international capacities in fighting trafficking in human beings (THB) with preventive measures and better protection and rehabilitation of victims of trafficking. In particular, the project aims to improve coordination and information sharing among responsible staff of Caritas; to scale-up advocacy trainings and awareness raising campaigns geared at various target groups; to develop victim protection and reintegration programs based on best international experience and practices; to enhance the capacity of rehabilitation centers, Caritas Staff  and local centers for social assistance; to provide prevention services.
This project will contribute to fighting against THB through promoting and strengthening the networking, co-operation, exchange and dissemination of practices at EU level and between country of origin, transit and destination and the neighboring countries in the area of preventing and combating trafficking in human beings. 
This project built upon the achievements of different projects financed by Caritas France which has been launched from 2005 till now.

 

Activity from the project :

“The Re-integration and the identification of the Victims” Caritas Albania

  On October 12 and 13 , 2011, in the framework of the implementation of the first activity of Regional Project, during the European Weak against Human Trafficking, Caritas Albania, in cooperation with the permanent representative office of France with the United Nations and International Organizations in Vienna, and the Embassy of France in Tirana organized the training “The Re-integration and the identification of the Victims”.
The training hosted representatives from Caritas France, Bosnia and Herzegovina  and Kosovo and their shelters, and NGOs from Tirana which have direct contacts with the victims. During the first day, the training was conducted by the Head of the Project, organization “Les  Amis du bus des femmes” Vanessa Simoni.

The main mission of this organization is to provide health, social and administrative assistance.
The main topics included:

  • The cases of family involvement in trafficking;
  • The policy against trafficking in France;
  • Identifying the problem and understanding and evaluating the issues of victims 

An important moment of this training was showing the concrete cases that this organization encountered during the work in the streets of Paris. The second part of the training was conducted by the Regional Technical Representative of Southeast Europe Mr. Eric Panloup, at the same time permanent representative of France with the United Nations and International Organizations in Vienna.

Mr.Panloup, in his capacity of an adviser for the issues of human trafficking referred to:

  • Collaboration of Police Department with the NGOs
  • Protecting the rights of the victims of trafficking
  • Compensation of the victims and children  protection

The topics were very interesting for the participants because these topics had direct relation with their job.

This activity had a great impact on:

  • Mutual information sharing among  participants
  • Knowing and comparing different realities
  • Applying different approaches and the best practices.

This experience will serve to the training participants to adopt new approaches for victim of trafficking identification and evaluation 

Study visit , “Prevention with Young Communities in Armenia” seminar and the conference “Prevention of HT – 9 Years at School” Caritas Armenia.

Armenian Caritas has organized a Study Visit Program in Armenia in the frames of “Human Trafficking, a Common Challenge for the New Century” project for Euro-Mediterranean Partners from Turkey, Ukraine, Romania, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina and for France.

Chiara Rambaldi and Ezgi Çakmak from Turkey, Natalia Holynska from Ukraine, Gabriela Chiroiu from Romania, Aurora Koqeku from Albania, Ivana Kozina from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Aliette Chauveau from France have arrived Armenia for exchange of experience and to strengthen their ability to combat trafficking.  

The highlights of the program were the seminar entitled “Prevention with Young Communities in Armenia” and the conference “Prevention of HT – 9 Years at School” which took place on 24-25th of February, 2012.  

 The following objectives were set up to organize the seminar:

v  To get familiar with HT realities in Armenia;

v  To strengthen the Partners capacity in working with schools and school communities;

v  To promote and share Armenian Caritas experience in the way of working with school communities and raising schoolchildren awareness on HT;

v  To share with partners the mechanism of the implementation of the program; development of educating module for the teachers and pupils, training of the teachers and pupils, evaluation of activities;

v  To promote the way of cooperation and collaboration with local and international organizations and government institutions dealing with HT and school education;

During the first part of the seminar Armenian Caritas “Prevention of Illegal Migration and Trafficking” Program Manager introduced the general HT situation in Armenia, the results achieved during 9 years trainings at schools for high grade pupils, talked about the working tools and methods used by the trainers in Armenia. Then the project trainers presented the way of monitoring the trainings at school, the way of making evaluations and the future plans. The plans were connected with the new project of trafficking that was the establishment of Migration and Trafficking Resource Centre (MTRC).

 The second part of the seminar was continued by the meetings with the representatives of the government and IOM. The Chief Specialist of Public Education Department from the Ministry of Education introduced the works done by the government and the procedure of inclusion of “trafficking” theme into the curriculum of school education. Trafficking related books for the teachers and for the pupils were developed by the experts of the National Institute of Education (NIE). 2400 teachers from all over Armenia have been trained by NIE, IOM and Armenian Caritas.

The next meeting was held with the representatives of IOM who presented their regional project called “Prevention of Trafficking at School Education in Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan”. The project aimed at developing and distributing educational materials to increase the understanding of the dangers of trafficking, realities of migration and awareness of available preventive support mechanisms among secondary school pupils, teachers and parents. They presented the history of the books created in collaboration with other organizations. Armenian Caritas in recent years has used the books for the trainings at schools as well.

The partners were also taken to one of the project beneficiary schools in Yerevan where trainings on illegal migration and trafficking theme have been organized for high grade pupils. 

The following objectives were set up to organize the conference: 

v To summarize of Armenian Caritas several years experience in prevention of illegal migration and trafficking at school level; 

v To encourage open discussions on propositions and suggestions received from the schools (received from the teachers’ and pupils’ Evaluations Reports) to enhance the level of HT information dissemination at school communities and in general;  

v To identify the gaps in the law of Armenia on trafficking and to raise modest methods to combat HT at local level; 

v To formulate written suggestions, recommendations to the Governmental Anti-trafficking Council for improving their policy in fight with trafficking phenomenon; 

All the Partners were invited to Tsaghkadzor Resort to participate at the conference. The beneficiary school teachers and school administration, the State representatives, international and national NGOs active in the field were the participants of the conference. 

The invitees had speeches and each introduced the works done in the sphere of HT and the project manager summarized several years experience in the field.  

The second part of the conference was organized in the way of workshop. The workshop was facilitated by an expert of US embassy in Armenia, who introduced US State Department TIP report referring to Armenia starting from 2002 and the Tier classifications. 

During the second part of the workshop the participants were divided into groups and the following tasks were given to the groups to discuss and to make suggestions: 

  1. 1. Children are part of the vulnerable groups of the society and are easy target for traffickers. Please, provide your recommendations on the necessary efforts that the government and society are required to undertake to protect the children.  
  2. 2. What efforts (legislative, institutional, activities, etc.) shall the government take in schools, especially in special schools to prevent trafficking?  
  3. 3. US Department of State evaluates trafficking in persons situation in countries (including Armenia) based on the minimum standards set by the US Government. Please, provide your recommendations to the Government of Armenia on what kind of efforts it shall take to solve the trafficking related issues.  

The groups were given 30 minutes for discussions. After the discussions one participant out of each group presented their suggestions and recommendations based on the discussions with the group members.  

Concrete suggestions and recommendations were made by participants addressed to the government for improving the trafficking situation in the country.  

After the conference, recommendations in a form of civic letter have been presented to the attention of the Government Anti-trafficking Council.  

Aurora Koqeku

Project Coordinator