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Better child protection can prevent trafficking, say participants at OSCE human rights conference

10 October 2011
Kadri Kruja (left), a social worker at the municipality of Elbasan in central Abania and Manuela Lake, a Senior Peer Educator at the Elbasan Youth Centre, spoke about a OSCE/ODIHR-funded project which is helping to improve the local Roma and Egyptian community’s access to education, healthcare, civil registration and employment during a side event on preventing child trafficking held at the OSCE Human Dimension Implementation Meeting in Warsaw, 6 October 2011. (OSCE/Piotr Markowski) Photo details

Participants at the Human Dimension Implementation Meeting in Warsaw on 6 October concluded that improving local and national child-protection systems can effectively curb the trafficking of children.

Examples of good practice to enhance the protection of vulnerable children were discussed during a side event organized by the Project Mario group of NGOs and supported by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) and the Office of the Special Representative and Co-ordinator for Combating Trafficking .

“Children need protection from discrimination, violence and the consequences of poverty and social exclusion, as these are the root causes which make them vulnerable to trafficking,” said Mariana Katzarova, ODIHR's Senior Advisor on Anti-Trafficking Issues. “There must be a greater focus on marginalized and vulnerable communities and the protection of their children”.

Opening the session, Joy Ngozi Ezeilo, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, talked about the urgent need to protect migrant children and children from marginalized communities such as the Roma, Sinti and Egyptians. 

Manuela Lake, from the Elbasan Youth Centre in Albania, an ODIHR-funded project in which young Roma and Egyptian people are providing assistance to their local communities, particularly children, highlighted how they are working to improve the community’s access to education, healthcare, civil registration and employment.

“The employment of Roma and Egyptian youths as peer educators facilitates the local authorities’ work with the Roma community and the peer educators also function as role models for their communities,” confirmed Kadri Kruja, a social worker at the municipality of Elbasan.

This meeting was a follow-up to the statement on child protection presented by the Alliance against Trafficking in Persons at the OSCE Review Conference in Warsaw in October 2010.