By Mirjana Akovic | SOS Consultant
It is our great pleasure and honor that ASTRA’s longstanding work has been internationally honored, and that we have been announced as a Hero in this year’s Trafficking in Persons report of the US Department of State. This is the first time that the award comes to Serbia and to the organization which has been committed to the fight against all forms of exploitation for 18 years.
Each year, the Department of State honors individuals around the world who are committed to the fight against human trafficking and who contribute to the increased protection of the victims, and this year it is Ivana Radovic from ASTRA. The award for the TIP Hero represents a sign that ASTRA is an internationally recognized organization, that the values and principles we insist on in our work have contributed to the fact that we have become relevant partners in a global response to the human trafficking issue.
The Director of ASTRA, Marija Andjelkovic, has said on the occasion: “Our heroic work has contributed that the issue of human trafficking in Serbia is recognized by individuals, as well as by the organizations, which evolved along with ASTRA’s initiatives and proposed solutions. We can promise, as an organization, that we will not cease to advocate for the improvement of the rights and protection of the victims of human trafficking, to offer direct help and support to the persons who survived exploitation, and to work on prevention of this type of continuous violence.”
The Trafficking in Persons report of the US Department of State was published on June 2018 and Serbia is this year again within the Tier 2:
“The Government of Serbia does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so. The government demonstrated increasing efforts compared to the previous reporting period; therefore Serbia was upgraded to Tier 2. The government demonstrated increasing efforts by consolidating the jurisdiction for trafficking crimes under one authority to improve investigations, and by creating a stand-alone Office of the National Coordinator that effectively elevated the national trafficking coordinator to a full-time position. The government adopted an anti-trafficking strategy and action plan, allocated 8 million dinars ($79,950) to its implementation, and mandated the reconstituted national anti-trafficking council to meet at least twice a year to coordinate anti-trafficking efforts. However, the government did not meet the minimum standards in several key areas. The government continued to lack formal victim identification procedures and the national referral mechanism lacked established roles and responsibilities for referring victims to support services. The urgent reception center, designed to provide safe shelter and services, was not functional for the fifth consecutive year. Judges did not consistently assign the status of “especially vulnerable witness” to trafficking victims and the government did not uniformly apply non-penalization principles for trafficking victims. The number of trafficking convictions fell for the fifth consecutive year.”
This award is evidence that our so far work has yielded relevant results and that it represents an encouragement for us to work even more actively, motivated and hard.
Links:
By Mirjana Akovic | SOS consultant
By Sofija Markovic | Volunteer on ASTRA SOS Hotline
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