Community leaders in southern Kyrgyzstan discuss preventing human trafficking at an OSCE training course
OSH, Kyrgyzstan, 17 May 2016 – Some 25 community leaders, heads and members of rural councils, religious leaders and youth from the Osh, Jalal-Abad and Batken regions gathered for a one-day training course on preventing human trafficking, and discussed how to foster co-operation with relevant state institutions across the country.
The OSCE Centre provided the course participants with relevant information materials and presented national legal and policy tools to raise awareness on exploitation and slavery within communities.
“Trafficking in human beings concerns all OSCE participating States, both as a security threat and as a human rights issue,” said Daniele Rumolo, Senior Human Dimension Officer at the OSCE Centre in Bishkek. “Virtually all countries in the region are countries of origin, transit, destination or a combination of the above. In a migration-prone country like Kyrgyzstan, continuous co-operation between communities and authorities is the most effective – in fact, the only – solution.”
Akylbek Tashbulatov, Director of the Centre for Support to International Protection, said that “the training course will help strengthen communication between communities and the Kyrgyz authorities, with a view to establishing effective mechanisms for the prevention of trafficking.”
The training course was organized by the OSCE Centre in Bishkek and the Centre for Support to International Protection in support of the implementation of the National Action Plan on Prevention of Trafficking in Human Beings for the period 2013 to 2016. It is part of the OSCE Centre’s human dimension project on addressing human trafficking in Kyrgyzstan through grassroots initiatives and multi-agency co-operation.