The authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina reiterated their commitment to continue their co-operation with the Council of Europe and the Euroepan Union through the Horizontal Facility II programme, to improve the national responses to human trafficking and the protection and assistance to the victims, in line with the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings. This was the main message of the beneficiaries of the Action “Preventing and Combating Trafficking in Human Beings in Bosnia and Herzegovina” during the third steering committee meeting organised on-line on 19 October 2020.
The Head of the Council of Europe Office in Sarajevo, Bojana Urumova, and the representative of the local European Union Delegation, Lejla Hrustanović, welcomed the participants and emphasised that trafficking in human beings is a common concern for both organisations and addressing it from a human rights perspective is a common priority.
The State Coordinator for trafficking in human beings, Samir Rizvo, stressed out that „Bosnia and Herzegovina has made some progress in the fight against trafficking. The new local anti-trafficking coordination teams have been formed. The new referral mechanism for combating trafficking in human beings is already yielding results, and judiciary has ruled on several cases.“
Assistant Minister, Saliha Đuderija, Ministry of Human Rights and Refugees, emphasized the importance of closer coordination amongst anti-trafficking actors and proposed that the Action helps with the upgrading and translation into practice of already existing models and guidelines.
The members of the steering committee welcomed the results achieved over the last months, which were highly impacted by the covid-19 pandemics:
- Research on the phenomenon of trafficking in human beings for the purpose of labour exploitation, research on the phenomenon of trafficking in children, and analysis of leel of consideration of gender and gender specific needs, have been conducted to identify strengths and gaps of the national anti-trafficking system challenged by the complex administrative-territorial structure of the country. Research on child age assessment methods and procedures recently started. The aim of the studies is to inform and assist the authorities in designing future policy and strategic documents and action plans, as well as to help the Action reshape forthcoming trainings for professionals;
- Three HELP online courses on trafficking in human beings were organised through which 53 legal professionals receied certificates;
- Two awareness raising campaigns on trafficking in human beings for the purpose of labour exploitation are ongoing, while such campaigns on trafficking in children are under preparation;
The participants discussed the challenges and priorities to be tackled in the near future with the assistance of the Action in light of the findings of the 2017 country evaluation report by the Group of Experts on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings, where GRETA found, among others, that the majority of the identified victims were children and some of them remain unprotected and exposed to risks of further trafficking and abuse. The participants endorsed the milestones to be achieved for the upcoming period and expressed the value of the action in these challenging times of pandemics.
The action on „Preventing and combating trafficking in human beings in Bosnia and Herzegovina“ is implemented under the joint European Union/Council of Europe programme „Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Turkey II“, aiming to improve anti-trafficking responses and victim protection measures, mainly through capacity building and awareness raising of key anti-trafficking actors in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
