From 17^th to 19^th March 53 people gathered in Bucharest to examine and reflect on the Christian Work against trafficking over the 5 year period since the Driebergen consultation.

The group was made up of men and women from the countries of origin and destination of trafficked women. There was experience in every field - raising awareness, campaigning, and education, giving shelter and support, repatriation, the police, legal, immigration. Law makers, NGO's and Church workers.   We met to raise awareness of the work being done, to exchange experiences, and to help build quality networks.

The meeting began in the Conference Hall of the Romanian Orthodox Patriarchate with

good media coverage.  We were welcomed by H.E. Dr. Nifon Mihaiţă - the President of

AIDRom.

The Archbishop spoke about the importance of building a European partnership and the hope that Romania would soon be part of the European Union.  He said trafficking is today's human slavery and the worst violation of women's human rights. He stressed the need for cooperation between churches and NGO's.

The participants in the seminar were honoured and impressed by the surprising presence and active contribution of His Beatitude Teoctist. 

His Beatitude Teoctist entered unexpectedly in the hall immediately after the welcoming speech of H.E. Dr. Nifon Mihaiţă. He expressed his joy of having all of us and spoke about his interest in the work against trafficking. He emphasised the role of the Church in the network against trafficking, he expressed his optimism in the success of our work, guided by our Christian faith and gave all present and our work his blessing. At the conference was also present H. E. Vincenţiu Ploieşteanul.

 

The seminar benefited from resourceful and various presentations of representatives of key state bodies, International organisations and NGOs.

The meeting continued with the report of Quaestor Vasile Niţă the Director of the Institute for Crime Research and Prevention in Bucharest. He spoke of the need for information to allow the prosecution of the traffickers and the difficulties this caused for the victims. There was a lack of resources available to carry out all the work that needed to be done but the co-operation and understanding between the police, the NGO's and the churches was growing. There was a need for the implementation of European laws to enable greater co-operation between the countries involved and to identify partners throughout Europe.

Mrs. Lorita Constantinescu, Program Coordinator of UNICEF Romania, spoke of the need for more education programmes and the dangers of the internet and pornography victimizing women and children. An immediate need however was the eradication of poverty that makes so many people vulnerable.

Over the course of the seminar we hard of the work of the Conference of European Churches (CEC) from the Rev. Eva Sibylle Vogel-Mfato. At the conference in Driebergen on Combating Trafficking against Women, the phenomenon of trafficking was first brought to the attention of the churches by Romania. Much has been achieved since then. An Information handbook was created from the consultations held. This handbook also contains liturgy material as well as educational.  There had been practical outreach and the bringing together of people from CCEE, CCME and Caritas Europe, out of which the CAT project had evolved. Christian Action and Networking against Trafficking in Women with the support of the STOP 11 programme of the European Commission.

The work of Churches and NGO's compliments each other. The Churches should always be there for people in need, and the Churches must be involved in the work of society. 

The question of Human Sexuality was an urgent issue for the Churches.  Issues on how we deal with what is behind trafficking, the whole question of prostitution, questions of the sexuality, why men use prostitutes, overcoming taboos. In society over the last decades there has been a change in sexual behavior and what is seen as acceptable in society - relationships being more liberal - marriage problems and breakdowns - the whole gender question.  We have to break the culture of silence relating to violence and sexual abuse. The Churches need to promote theological discussion between men and women on sexuality and power in church and society.

 

Moritz Torsten of the Churches Commission for Migrants in Europe reported on the work of the CAT programme. Churches and church related organisations for years have denounced trafficking as an unacceptable human rights violation, based on the biblical conviction that 1 Corinthians 12 26-27 says that “if one part of the body suffers all other parts of the body suffer with it - all of you are Christ's body and each one is part of it”.

In many countries, churches and their diaconal services offer assistance to trafficked women. They also implement prevention orientated activities, provide shelter for trafficked women, raise awareness for the issue of trafficking and finance activities against trafficking. As trafficking is a trans-national phenomenon, it became clear that any response to trafficking needed to be a trans-national one. The Churches Commission for Migrants in Europe and Caritas Europa, working together with their members, has initiated networking activities among churches and church related organisations throughout Europe. AIDRom entered in the CAT network in 2003 and tried to bring the experience of the program SENS developed since 2000.

There had been a series of consultations, bringing together all the interested parties and seeing what was being done in different countries and in 2002 this networking resulted in the creation of the project ‘Christian Action and Networking against Trafficking (CAT)' under the STOP 11 programme.

During the first year of the project the organisations involved visited one another, across Europe the countries divide into countries of origin,  where women are trafficked from, mainly eastern Europe, countries of transit where women are brought through, and destination countries.  These meetings established the depth of the problem, trafficking in minors and women, trafficking for destructive cults, voodoo. The need for co-operation with the police in all countries.  The different needs involved, in countries of origin - how to stop and make women aware of the dangers -- but these same countries also have to have provision for the survivors of trafficking, women who  managed to get back to their home country. From all these meetings, best practices were established and all this was brought together in an action orientated guide for raising awareness and social assistance

Alina Brasoveanu of OSCE - the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, a UN organization - in Warsaw, Poland.

Trafficking in women for the purposes of sexual exploitation for OSCE the trade in people includes trafficking in migrants for sweatshop, domestic or agricultural labor, forced or fictitious mail-order marriages as well as buying and selling women and children for brothels and strip clubs.

Their investigations were brought together in a report that recommends that the OSCE integrates ant-trafficking measures into existing human rights, civil society, and institution-building activities, provide training to OSCE field mission members and undertake a leading role in combating trafficking in South Eastern Europe as part of the OSCE mandate under the Stability Pact.

But as primary responsibility for combating trafficking rests with the participating states, their report indicated a number of areas where the participating states could take concrete action on a national. Current legislation in most countries was proving inadequate. 

The wish of OSCE was that state authorities would sign up to a National Referral Mechanism - this is a co-operative mechanism through which state authorities fulfill their obligations - it would be a way of identifying victims - the police and immigration working better together to assist and protect the victim - how to deal with repatriation and social inclusion - specific legal provision - and for identification - outreach work, hotlines, law enforcement

It could be a way of bringing together in a round table the different stakeholders - trying to establish national structures to help everyone.

All this information was well received and commented on by those present.  We then looked and heard of the experience of the countries present.

AIDRom has started, immediately after the Driebergen consultation, the programme of prevention and reintegration of victims of trafficking. Together with the Ecumenical Forum of Romanian Christian Women and other local and international partners, AIDRom developed a programme for prevention and reintegration of victims of trafficking: SENS

The SENS programme is bringing together the police, the NGO's who give social assistance, and the prevention programme.

We heard what is happening in Moldova, where the problem increases daily. The work being done by Charitas in Check Republic. We heard the work of SRTV the Dutch Foundation of the Religious against Trafficking in Women and how there work is now stretching to Africa.  The UK delegates gave an update on what is happening there.

 

This seminar, the third in a series, started in 2003, was the best, not only in organising and participation but also in the substance of discussions and variety of activities.

All activities started in time and the work-groups were animated by hot debates, opposite ideas, but constructive opinions.

 

There has been a dynamic change between 2003 to 2005, to the better - said one participant.

The work in groups, the plenary work alternated with visits to shelters and learning and entertainment moments as the play, created and performed by the group of students from the high school George Cosbuc.

One of the participant's words:

The play was excellent, made the anti-trafficking message very clear from the position of young people. The play should be disseminated in school, on video tapes or CDs, but the role of “Question” would have to be LIVE in each school or group presentation, to get responses.

The participants who have been part of the previous seminars were happy to meet old friends, their network has got stronger and in the same time opened to new partners.

The seminar was rich in variety of topics, backgrounds and experiences of participants, activities.

It was interesting the dialogue between Romanian Police representatives and NGOs representatives related to victims confidentiality and law implementation, statistics as an instrument to be used in the fight against trafficking.

Participants from U.K., Margaret Clark and Sally Beaumont appreciated at this point that even contradictory discussions are good to build A TRUST RELATION.

All participants appreciated the structure of the seminar, the activities, including the social events, the experts and the organisers, especially Elena Timofticiuc, the hospitality of the personnel in the AIDRom Conference Center.

The time was too short and all of us concluded that yearly meetings are necessary to evaluate our progress and plan for the future.

More time should be dedicated to work in groups on the three main topics, involving different sides of trafficking work: research, information, prevention, law enforcement, victim assistance and reintegration.

In the plenary sessions representatives of state institutions from other countries, especially from receiving countries in Western Europe would be of great interests and useful in shaping our networks.

The program continued with the field visited of 2 centres where rehabilitation work is being carried out.

The apartment run by AIDRom where young vulnerable people receive work based skills and training on the practical issues of living and help to obtain employment.

 

 

The apartment run by the ADPARE organizations is very inspiring.  Here survivors of trafficking are helped to regain their lives.  This is long and hard work very dependent on funding. The women are normally referred from the Immigration Service, where their stay can only be short. 

 

 

  Main conclusion and request of all participants:

The network created and fostered by these international seminar series organised in Romania has come now to a moment when a focal point, should be created. Its task would be to facilitate the coordination of the network and the on going exchange of information, to create opportunities and organise international and regional meetings and bilateral visits among countries involved in this net.

One of the participants stressed the idea that we should take into consideration the fact that, “the client” is the one who maintains the network of traffickers. For this reason we need to focus more on awareness on civil society, church communities, etc.

Most of the participants proposed that AIDRom would organised such a focal point, acts as secretariat of the European network, register the network and  the members: (inter)organisations, state bodies, research institutions, experts and individuals involved in the traffick work, establish a website, start fund-raising, etc.A six monthly newsletter should be printed to include all members' activities, questions, requests and plans, law developments, etc.

 

Elena Timofticiuc

Program manager