OSCE gathers youth, influencers and governmental practitioners in Tajikistan to discuss awareness raising on youth crime prevention

On 23 and 24 April, the OSCE’s Transnational Threats Department (TNTD) and the Office of the Co-ordinator of OSCE Economic and Environmental Activities (OCEEA), in co-operation with the Programme Office in Dushanbe, held multi-stakeholder workshops with young people, influencers and governmental practitioners to discuss how to use social media as a platform to raise the awareness and resilience of young people on involvement in crime.

During the workshop, young people, influencers and practitioners discussed youth crime trends and challenges, as well as opportunities social media offers to promote young people’s resilience to recruitment and involvement in crime.

Participants also reflected on the key target audiences, styles, platforms, and effective messages to be used for youth crime prevention awareness-raising campaigns on social media. Meaningful engagement of young people and promotion of their voices in building resilience in youth crime prevention and in the promotion of a culture of integrity using social media was a cross-cutting theme of the workshop. The event also facilitated networking and the exchange of experiences and good practices among peers and across sectors on youth crime prevention.

The workshop outcomes will help to develop a targeted social media awareness-raising campaign in Tajikistan. The campaign will support the implementation of the National Drug Control Strategy of the Republic of Tajikistan for 2021-2030. The Strategy is one of the few in Central Asia and emphasizes the use of online tools and the inclusion of young people and influencers and bloggers to raise awareness among young people on the dangers and realities of involvement in illicit activities and substance abuse, providing alternatives and positive examples.

The campaign was implemented under the OSCE-wide multi-year extra-budgetary project “Enhancing youth crime and drug use prevention through education on legality and awareness campaigns addressing threats of organized crime and corruption” funded by Germany. Other donors supporting this project are Andorra, Italy and Poland.