OSCE Project Co-ordinator hosts conference to reduce children trafficking through jobs in Ukraine

KYIV, 3 March 2010 - Economically empowering orphans to reduce their vulnerability to human trafficking is the focus of a national conference organized by the OSCE Project Co-ordinator (PCU) in Ukraine and the Ukrainian Ministry for Family, Youth and Sports in Kyiv today.

The conference brought together social services and employment providers as well as representatives of local business communities from five regions - Ivano-Frankivsk, Kharkiv, Luhansk, Zaporizhya and the city of Kyiv - which have been the focus of an OSCE PCU project to combat trafficking in children. Participants discussed the impact of the support programme, which began last year to promote life and job skills for Ukrainian orphans who will graduate from vocational training schools this year.

"The OSCE PCU's support programme aims to help orphans to develop skills and find gainful employment, thus reducing the risk of their falling victim to traffickers, who prey on the vulnerable in society. This conference aims to highlight the project successes and work out recommendations for improvement, and will hopefully enable the activities to be extended across the whole of Ukraine," said Rene BeBeau, Senior Project Officer at the Project Co-ordinator in Ukraine.

The project consisted of three training components. A programme for social and employment service providers, a life-skill and employment-search programme for orphans attending vocational school, and a series of corporate social responsibility training sessions for Ukrainian businesses. It is funded by the Governments of Andorra, Liechtenstein, Poland and the U.S.