OSCE promotes social entrepreneurship to prevent human trafficking in Ukraine

ZHYTOMYR, VINNYTSIA, LVIV, 21 JULY 2015 - The OSCE Project Co-ordinator in Ukraine (PCU), jointly with Ukraine’s Social Policy Ministry, conducted a series of round tables to launch a project in support of social entrepreneurship as a tool to address challenges of trafficking in human beings held on 20-21 July.

The project aims to create new economic opportunities for victims of trafficking and vulnerable groups, including internally displaced persons, as well as to strengthen NGOs’ capacity to provide services to trafficked victims. The PCU supports NGOs in launching their social businesses, which will become a source of funding for their anti-trafficking activities. At the same time, social enterprises will help with on-the-job training and create temporary employment opportunities for actual and potential victims of trafficking, as well as for internally displaced persons. This will help them gain experience and qualifications needed to become more competitive on the labour market.

Currently, four NGOs have been chosen to pilot their social business ideas in Vinnytsia, Zhytomyr and Lviv oblasts and in Kyiv. The round tables are the first step towards the actual establishment of social enterprises: greenhouse business in Kyiv, sewing enterprise in Zhytomyr, student canteen in Vinnytsia and handicrafts workshop in Lviv.

“Trafficking in human beings is a complex problem, and it takes close co-operation between state agencies and civil society using consistent approaches to put a stop to it. Vulnerability to human trafficking is caused, among other things, by the desire to find better employment opportunities, whether in home country or abroad,” said Ambassador Vaidotas Verba, the OSCE Project Co-ordinator in Ukraine. He added that social enterprises open up real prospects for reducing this economic pressure factor.

The project is implemented with financial support from the governments of Canada and Norway, and in close co-operation with the OSCE Special Representative and Co-ordinator for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings.