Number Of Women Convicted For Human Trafficking.docx

Number of women convicted for human trafficking “exceptionally high” -UN Posted on November 27, 2014 by admin

Nearly three in 10 convicted human traffickers worldwide are female, according to a U.N. report on Monday which found that women play a bigger role in trafficking than other major crimes such as murder or robbery. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said that 28 percent of convicted traffickers between 2010-2012 were women, many of them acting as guards, recruiters and money collectors, to gain the trust of female victims. In contrast, between 10 percent and 15 percent of the total number of people convicted of serious crimes were female, the report said. Kristiina Kangaspunta, chief of the UNODC’s Global Report on Trafficking in Persons Unit, said the number of women convicted for human trafficking was “exceptionally high”, adding that some of them were forced to recruit others by trafficking rings. “Women involved in human trafficking operations are often in close contact with the victims, whether it is recruiting them, deceiving them or transporting them,” Kangaspunta told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone from Geneva. “Given that many human trafficking investigations are based on victims’ testimonies, these low-ranking female traffickers are most likely to be identified and convicted, while the men at the top of the chain are rarely seen or known by the victims.” The report also said that 33 percent of detected victims of human trafficking are children with girls accounting for two out of every three of them. Earlier this month the 2014 Global Slavery Index estimated that almost 36 million people around the world are in some form of slavery. The figure includes people who have been trafficked for sexual exploitation and forced labour. Victims turn perpetrators UNODC said women were more likely to be convicted of human trafficking alongside their partner or family members than men.

More than 100 cases across 30 countries involved female traffickers who had worked with their husband, mother, daughter or siblings to traffic victims, mainly for sexual exploitation and forced labour, UNODC said. In one case outlined in the report, a woman and her husband were jailed for five years for trafficking six women from Belarus into another European country, where they were sold to nightclub owners. In Eastern Europe and Central Asia, more women than men were convicted of human trafficking between 20102012, while in North and South America, nearly 40 percent of traffickers were women, according to the report. The proportion of convicted female offenders in South and East Asia, Africa and the Middle East was around 30 percent, while the rate in Western and Central Europe stood at just over 20 percent. The report said that in countries with high numbers of female human traffickers, there were often many girl victims. “For some women and girls, brutalised by their own experience of trafficking, the option of becoming a trafficker themselves can present itself as a path out of exploitation,” said Aidan McQuade, director of Anti-Slavery International. “It is a sad human truth that where violence is concerned, as it is with trafficking, victims can often become perpetrators,” McQuade told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Source: http://www.trust.org/item/20141124163933-6vy1j/?source=search

UNODC 2014 Global Report on Trafficking in Persons Posted on November 24, 2014 by admin

In 2010, just a few months short of the tenth anniversary of the adoption of the Trafficking in Persons Protocol, Member States renewed their commitment to the fight against trafficking in persons by adopting the United Nations Global Plan of Action to Combat Trafficking in Persons (contained in General Assembly resolution 64/293). In the framework of the Global Plan of Action, the General Assembly mandated UNODC to collect information and publish a Global Report on Trafficking in Persons every two years. The UNODC Global Report 2014 is the second of its kind mandated by the General Assembly. It covers 128 countries and provides an overview of patterns and flows of trafficking in persons at global, regional and national levels, based on trafficking cases detected between 2010 and 2012 (or more recent). The Global Report 2014 highlights the role of organized crime in trafficking in persons, and includes an analytical chapter on how traffickers operate. The worldwide response to trafficking in persons is also a focus of this edition of the Global Report. Trafficking in persons is a truly global phenomenon: between 2010 and 2012, victims from at least 153 countries were detected in 124 countries worldwide. A great majority of the victims detected are females, although men and boys are also trafficked in significant numbers. Women and girls are not only trafficked for sexual exploitation, but also for forced labour and for other purposes. The percentage of children among victims is increasing and children now comprise nearly one third of all detected trafficking victims in the world. Many countries have recently passed legislation criminalizing trafficking in persons as a specific offence. However, definitions of human trafficking vary, as does the capacity to identify offenders and victims. The overall criminal justice response to trafficking in persons, which has historically been very weak, has not improved. The Country Profiles of the Global Report present a national level analysis for each of the 128 countries covered by this edition of the report. Report on Armenia is available through the following link: http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-andanalysis/glotip/GLOTIP14_Country_profiles_Eastern_Europe_Central_Asia.pdf Full report available analysis/glotip/GLOTIP_2014_full_report.pdf

here: http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-

Source: http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/glotip.html

Slavery’s Shadow on Switzerland Posted on November 24, 2014 by admin

Two months ago, I discovered that my grandmother, Ida, had been a verdingkind, or “contract child” in Switzerland in the 1890s. A transcript from the archives in Teuffenthal, a small village south of Bern, the capital, confirmed that Ida, an orphan, had been contracted as an unpaid domestic servant to a woman in a neighboring village. The Swiss authorities used the nine-year-old’s meager inheritance to pay the woman 120 Swiss francs a year; Ida’s sevenyear-old brother, Fritz, was made to pay 70 Swiss francs to fund his hardscrabble life as a farmhand. They both “had the appearance of being very hungry” the document chillingly noted. They were kept under contract for about eight years. Though disturbing, my grandmother’s story is hardly unique. In Switzerland, hundreds of thousands of children were victims of a state-sanctioned system of forced labor dating from the 19th century. Under this so-called welfare policy, orphans, sons and daughters of poor, single mothers, or illegitimate children — those in situations deemed precarious, or whom the state feared would be a financial burden — were brought to the local town hall and auctioned to farmers seeking free labor; the winning bidder was whoever demanded the least annual compensation from the commune. The verdingkinder system largely faded out in the 1970s; many Swiss have only recently learned of the program’s existence. But this and other policies of administrative internment did not officially become illegal in the country until 1981. At least 10,000 former verdingkinder are still alive. This spring, a committee of government advisers, sociologists, historians and jurists proposed a reparations initiative that would establish a fund of 500 million Swiss francs (about $520 million), to be disbursed to living victims of the verdingkinder system via an independent commission. Two weeks ago, supporters of the initiative collected the last of the 100,000 signatures necessary to force a national vote; Parliament must now decide whether to back the proposal. That it will do so is hardly a forgone conclusion, as members of many powerful interests, including the Free Democratic Party and the Farmer’s Union, have opposed contributing to such a fund. But Parliament must. Agreeing to compensate the victims would mean that their suffering has been finally and properly acknowledged by its ultimate perpetrator: the state itself. While it is impossible to determine the exact number of verdingkinder, some historians estimate that as many as 5 percent of all Swiss children were forced into farm labor from the 19th to mid-20th century. According to one account from 1826, “Who asked the least got the child despite its screaming and protests.

…The cheaper they had contracted the children, the better for the community.” While public auctions were phased out in some cantons beginning in the mid-19th century, a similar lowest-bid system is thought to have persisted until the 1930s in some rural districts, behind closed doors. Life for the verdingkinder was grueling. In return for commune funds, foster parents had only to ensure that their unpaid charges attended the village school, even if they were too hungry or exhausted to pay attention. Many former verdingkinder have described waking at six, working in the fields, going to school and being sent out to work again until late at night. Weekends were often spent in the fields as well. But hard unpaid labor wasn’t the only problem. By placing vulnerable children at the mercy of poor farmers, the Swiss authorities created a situation ripe for abuse. The verdingkinder faced beatings, starvation and sexual abuse. Shunned by their schoolmates, they became socially isolated; suicide rates were high. Well into the 20th century, other administrative internment policies operated concurrently with the verdingkinder system (the living victims of which are also eligible for compensation under the proposed initiative). Thousands of children were unwillingly placed in foster homes where they were abused or forced into unpaid labor. Adolescents and young adults deemed morally degenerate, including juvenile delinquents and unmarried mothers, were sent to detention centers or even prisons; young mothers were made to put their children up for adoption. The authorities were also responsible for forced abortions and the forced sterilization or chemical castration of hundreds of patients in Swiss clinics. The seeping out of accounts by verdingkinder and other internees over the past decade has triggered a wave of soul-searching in this otherwise phlegmatic nation. But thus far, Switzerland’s formal position on reparation has been incoherent. An attempt to compensate the victims of forced sterilization was rejected by Parliament in 2004, though it finally succeeded in bringing these government policies to national attention. Parliament mustered a grudging official apology in 2013, but when it adopted legislation this March on the need for “rehabilitation” for administrative internees, compensation was not on the agenda. Little by little, though, resistance is becoming more difficult. This year, an official committee again stressed the importance of compensation. In April, in what was essentially a stopgap measure, it established an emergency relief fund of 7 million to 8 million Swiss francs (at least $7.3 million) for victims in serious financial difficulty, available through June 2015. Just two months after opening to the public, the fund had received over 350 requests for assistance. For many, the proposed reparation initiative is too little, too late. Even if it sails through unopposed, the aging verdingkinder and former internees— many of whom emerged from their stolen childhoods barely literate, unable to find jobs or establish relationships, chronically depressed or suicidal — would not begin to see compensation until at least 2017. For this reason, the initiative also calls for a “scientific study of this dark episode in Swiss history.” But an independent Truth and Reconciliation commission would be more appropriate. The Swiss need to openly acknowledge that, until the late 20th century, their government effectively condoned a system of slavery within its borders. The text of the proposed compensation initiative never uses that word. But until the Swiss are finally able to see this system for what it was, the verdingkinder and others affected by administrative internment will not get the justice they deserve.

*By TONY WILD for NY_Times NOV. 10, 2014 **Tony Wild is the author of several history books, and, most recently, the novel “The Moonstone Legacy.”

***Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/11/opinion/slaverys-shadow-onswitzerland.html?hpw&rref=opinion&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region®ion=bottomwell&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=3

The RA Police Deputy Head, Lieutenant General Hunan Poghosyan’s report during the RA National Assembly session concerning the bill “On identification of and support to persons subjected to trafficking in human beings and exploitation” Posted on November 22, 2014 by admin

On November 20th, the regular session of the RA National Assembly took place, during which according to the agenda, the amendment with regard the inclusion of “administrative offences” in the bill of “On identification of and support to persons subjected to trafficking in human beings and exploitation” and the amendment of the Law on the Status of Foreign Citizens has been discussed with the view of adopting both bills with the first reading. The main reporter was the RA Police Deputy Head, Lieutenant General Hunan Poghosyan. “Dear Dear MP-s,

National

Assembly

President,

With the first reading, the amendment of RA legislation on “administrative offences” with regard the bill of “On identification of and support to persons subjected to trafficking in human beings and exploitation” and amendment in the RA Law on the Status of Foreign Citizens, is presented to the scrutiny of the National assembly. The preparation of the bill on “On identification of and support to persons subjected to trafficking in human beings and exploitation” is due to the necessity of complying with the Council of Europe N197 Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings, and has the objective to improve the process of identification of trafficked

persons, guarantee support to the victims regardless of nationality, citizenship, decide upon the reflection period in legal terms, provide compensation and legal accessibility to the victims, create flexible and productive protection system for the victims. The issues with the finding, identification and support to exploited or trafficked persons are due to the current RA Government Decision 1385A of November 29th, 2008, titled “The National Referral Mechanism for the Exploited Individuals”, which does not fully reflect the essence of the fight against trafficking in accordance with international norms. With the existing order, it is intended to implement a three-phase identification with a corresponding support to each of the phases, as an addition, the second and the third phases of the identification and the support stemming from it, will be possible only in the case when these individuals have been recognized as victims due to criminal proceedings, or in case of a verdict. Actually, the support in the second and the third phase is dependent on the law enforcement bodies’ relations and the cooperation with the victim, which stands as the main conflicting issue with the Convention. The adoption of the bill is for the inclusion of more complete and productive provisions complying with international standards in the sphere of victim protection and support. In particular, for the first time, the issues with regard the status of the trafficked or exploited persons will be normalized through separate RA legislation. The legislation will be equally applicable both for RA citizens and for the foreign citizens of any country, for stateless persons or refugees residing in the Republic of Armenia. This committee will be formed of non-governmental organizations having expertise in the identification of the victims of trafficking or exploitation, of RA Prosecutor’s office, RA Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, RA Police representatives, who will be presented in the committee proportionally and will be granted equal rights. The head of the identification committee will be appointed the representative from RA Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs. The work agenda of the identification committee will be set by the RA Government Decision. According to the bill, in the pre-identification stage the individual is provided with the support and protection based on humanitarian principles. The victims with special category will be provided with support as well. The order and amount of the support will be defined in accordance with the adoption of the legislation by the RA Government. In the RA legislation on administrative offences, there is no provision which will allow freeing the trafficking victims from the accountability set for such offences, which the victims committed as a result of force by the traffickers in the course of trafficking. The RA legislation on the legal status of foreign citizens does not provide for residence and employment permit for the trafficked or exploited persons. With the amendments in the legislation, the provisions will normalize the temporary residence permit and employment permit giving issues, also issues like obtaining permanent residence for living in the RA territory while having a temporary residence permit. As a result of the adoption of the bills, the procedures with regard the identification, support and protection of the trafficked persons will be in accordance with the Council of Europe 197th Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings provisions. Highlighting the fight against trafficking, the presented bills are one more step in the legislative reforms sphere for the enhancement of the support process to the victims. Dear MP-s, I suggest to adopt the bill with the first reading. Thank you” The video of the report is accessible in the RA National Assembly webpage, starting from the 3rd hour of the NA session http://parliament.am/live.php?lang=arm

What’s lacking in New York’s AntiTrafficking Legislation? Posted on November 17, 2014 by admin

On October 16th New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed into legislation a bill that would protect young victims of trafficking by granting two primary protections: a sealing provision of victim’s records and a decriminalization status of teens who had previously been convicted of a crime as a direct result of being trafficked. The bill has two major oversights: a lack of protection for adults and a lack of consideration of victims and survivors of labor trafficking. According to the press release issued by the governor’s office, under the new law (S. 6840/A. 8749-A), all records relating to 16- or 17-year olds must be sealed to protect against future employment discrimination. The records may only be unsealed if they must be used against the victim’s trafficker in court. Sealing of records allows teens increased access to job opportunities in the future, since even some low-wage, low-skill positions require background checks. The second portion of the bill allows convicted victims to be classified as “youthful offenders” – or sexually exploited children – rather than being criminalized as adults. The press release states that in cases involving 16and 17-year olds, instead of being immediately classified as criminals, the teens will be given access to services such as housing, crisis intervention programming and community-based programming. If the victim does not comply with the alternative conditions, the judge may convert the case back to a criminal one. As discussed in a previous HTC blog post on Colorado House Bill 14-1273, there are two vital components this legislation is lacking. The first oversight is the lack of protection for adults. Why not extend the sealing – or even better, expungement – of records to all victims of trafficking in New York? If survivors cannot secure employment because of their criminal status, the cycle of victimization continues. Why should this only apply to teens or children? The second oversight of the bill is that it seemingly only refers to victims of sex trafficking. Labor trafficking is as prevalent and pervasive , and those convicted as a result of labor exploitation may face the same challenges as those who were trafficked for sex. Why should they be denied alternative services, such as access to housing? We see a very similar discrepancy in Colorado’s legislation, which allows the records of sex trafficking victims to be sealed with no mention of protection for victims or survivors of labor trafficking. Photo: New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, via Creative Commons) by Jeanne Crump, HTC associate Source: http://humantraffickingcenter.org/human-trafficking/whats-lacking-new-yorks-anti-trafficking-legislation/

Austrian business leaders show a heart for victims of human trafficking Posted on November 10, 2014 by admin

3 November 2014 – The UN Voluntary Trust Fund for Victims of Trafficking in Persons received a U$ 250,000 boost in donations yesterday from the private sector at a fund-raising event in Vienna, attended by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz, UNODC Executive Director YuryFedotov and fashion designer Vivienne Westwood. Proceeds from the event will go directly to grassroots organizations that rescue, shelter and reintegrate victims into society.

The event was organized by Austrian businessman and philanthropist Ali Rahimi, who, since 2013, has been an active supporter of the Trust Fund and UNODC’s Blue Heart Campaign against Human Trafficking. A special carpet, donated by The Rug Company and using iconic Vivienne Westwood graphics as well as the words STOP HUMAN TRAFFICKING and the designer’s signature in support of the campaign, was auctioned at the event. Human trafficking affects every country in the world. Victims are trafficked for sexual exploitation and forced labour. UNODC figures show that women and girls make up 75 per cent of detected victims, with girls constituting two out of every three child victims. “This callous crime touches almost every aspect of modern existence, from the clothes people wear to the meals they eat. Its victims …suffer terrible conditions and their individual stories are marked by pain, suffering and inhumanity. When these narratives are taken together, they form a tragedy that shames the world” said SecretaryGeneral Ban Ki-moon at the event. Established in 2010, the UN Trust Fund provides direct assistance to grass-roots organizations that support victims and survivors of human trafficking around the world. In 2013, the Fund provided support to around 2,000 victims, especially women and children. “The UN Trust Fund transforms victims into survivors. It offers safe houses, legal support and treatment for physical and mental abuse. It enables people to obtain job training, and children to get an education. These may seem like small steps forward in the lives of individuals, but they add up to a global march toward progress” said the SecretaryGeneral.

The support to the victims, the Secretary-General continued, “will deliver a clear message to the world: that people are not property, and children are not commodities, and we stand together in solidarity for them.” Source http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/frontpage/2014/October/austrian-business-leaders-show-a-heart-forvictims-of-human-trafficking.html?ref=fs1

Human Trafficking Crimes committed during nine-month period of 2014 in Armenia Posted on November 7, 2014 by admin

On the 6th of November, at a meeting with journalists organized by the RA Police General Department for Combating Organized Crime 3-rd Department’s chief, Police Colonel Tigran Petrosyan, presented the overall progress of the measures taken by the police in combating human trafficking in Armenia during nine-month period of 2014. According to Colonel’s words, the fight against human trafficking is not limited to the disclosure of crimes..It covers wide range of activities, such as the implementation of awareness-rasing campaigns, legislative initiatives, enhancement of skills of police, etc. Today, fundamental anti-trafficking activities in Armenia are carried out through serious cooperation with government agencies, international and non-governmental organizations.Obvious achievements such as identification of trafficking cases, disclosure of criminals and, in general, the prevention of the phenomenon are the result of joint efforts and cooperation. Due to 18 filed lawsuits in 2013-2014 period, 22 cases have been identified 10 of which were committed by organized gangs. There have been identified 28 victims of human trafficking out of which were minors. In out of 12 lawsuits with the charge of sexual exploitation, 4 cases occurred in United Arab Emirates, 2 in Turkey, 6 in Armenia. With the crime of human trafficking and exploitation, 17 individuals have been charged and 16 individuals are under international prosecution. At the same time, as an adjacent crime there were disclosed 62 cases of child-related crimes, such as forcing children into begging and vagrancy, child selling and minors prostitution.

Over the past two years 28 people have been convicted with the charge of human trafficking and exploitation. After the presentation, Tigran Petrosyan answered the questions of journalists. Source: http://www.police.am/news/view/%D5%A1%D5%BD061114.html Other publications: http://armlur.am/257651/ http://www.tert.am/am/news/2014/11/09/Armenia-trafficking/?sw http://fnews.am/?p=2496238&l=am%2Fhay+kanayq+trafiqingi+en+entarkvum+arabakan+emirutyunerumvo%D6 %82+turqiayum

The regular session of the Working Group on RA human trafficking and exploitation issues was held Posted on October 30, 2014 by admin

October 30th has been marked by the regular session of RA Human Trafficking Committee adjacent Working Group on Combating Trafficking, with Vahram Kazhoyan as the head of the session.

Each of the Working Group members introduced current issues with regard to trafficking. The discussion commenced with the OSCE Yerevan Office representative Ovsanna Babayan’s speech, who presented the process of the research project initiated by OSCE and the issues which occurred during the process. It was suggested to research the existence of the children’s forced labor not only in the households in the selected regions, but also in special child-care institutions. This suggestion was challenged, however, by the Ministry of Education and Science representative Anahit Muradyan, who argued that the results from the study conducted in special care institutions, as a rule, are far from reality, because children are keen to fantasize, when they are being interviewed. Nevertheless, through lawyers’ involvement, the issue of the questionnaire experiment conditions has been discussed, in particular the location of interview with children, the question of presence of parents, representatives of special care institutions and psychologists during the interview.

With regard to the interview with children, it was suggested to conduct it in domestic conditions. Questions such as the dangers of interviewing of children separately in special care institutions or orphanages, the use of caution and watchfulness in accordance with the psychological condition of children, the methods and tools to interview children with disabilities, have been raised by A. Muradyan. Consequently, the main topic of discussion at the meeting was the selection of target group for the research questionnaire aimed at observing children’s forced labor: questions such as ‘which group of children the questionnaire should apply to’, ‘children from orphanages or special institutions or children from socially low-level families, where children are subjected to forced labor and sometimes to begging and as a result do not attend schools…’ has been discussed. Final decision was made to include all children. Ovsanna Babayan also touched the issue of methodology, noting that till winter upon the receipt of survey results from several regions, the OSCE will finalize the methodology. She also highlighted the fact that without the results from experiement it was impossible to decide upon the methodology. It is necessary to mention that the substantive part of the questionnaire OSCE project group agreed with the Ministry of Education and Science and the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs. The next question of the session concerned the bill on “Identification of and support to persons subjected to trafficking in human beings and exploitation”. The head of anti-trafficking division of RA Police, Robert Grigoryan informed that the bill was already in the National Assembly, has been observed by the relevant committee and has to get into the agenda of the National Assembly. The further discussion of the meeting was continued by the director of “Association of Audio-Visual Reporters’” NGO, Arzuman Harutyunyan, who raised the issue of the Public Social Announcements broadcasting by Public TV channel and asked the Working Group for support through the RA Government letter directed to Public TV Channel requesting to broadcast the Public Social Announcements free. The request was satisfied and Vahram Kazhoyan took the responsibility to deal with the issue. Simultaneously, Mr. Harutyunyan thanked the RA police, in particular Tigran Petrosyan for broadcasting the Public Social Announcements in “Hertapah Mas” (Police on duty ) and “02″ programs of the Police. In connection with this, the US embassy in Armenia representative Maritsa Hovhannisyan noted that the TIP report should include information about this cooperation. At the end of the session, Vahram Kazhoyan introduced the new member of the Working Group, employer of Labor Inspectorate of RA Ministry of Health, Stepan Shahumyan. The photos of the meeting are available through the official Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.972009799479090.1073741846.815159858497419&type=1 Anahit “Development of Anti-trafficking information platform in Armenia” project volunteer

Presentation of new handbook for law enforcement officials Posted on October 29, 2014 by admin

at:

Arakelyan

On 28th of October, the presentation of new handbook for law enforcement officials “The peculiarities of participation in criminal proceedings of juvenile victims of trafficking or exploitation (pre-trial proceeding)” took place in Yerevan Elit Plaza Hotel. The handbook published by “Hope and Help” NGO is intended for law enforcement officials, such as investigators, police officers, psychologists involved in criminal proceedings, employees of organizations for the protection of children’s rights. The handbook explains particular features of pre-trial proceedings in criminal proceedings with involvement of minor trafficking victims. The guests were welcomed by “Hope and Help” NGO’s president Enoq Shatvoryan, who introduced handbook’s authors – Deputy Chairman of RA Investigative Committee, Doctor of Law, Docent Artur Ghambaryan and OSCE Yerevan’s Office for Combating Trafficking Senior Counsel, Candidate of Law Siences, Docent, Member of RA Chamber of Advocates, lawyer David Tumasyan. E. Shatvoryan underlined in his opening speech that the handbook is created as a guide for those law enforcement officials who work with victim children during the pre-trial proceedings. According to Shatvoryan’s words the right approach in work with victim children during the investigation is often ignored. Society doesn’t pay proper attention to this issue and the handbook aims to change the attitude and the course of activities towards victim children. “This handbook is one of the ways to capture attention towards protection of victims’ rights”, – underlined E.Shatvoryan. In his turn D. Tumasyan noted, that idea of creating this kind of guide evolved long time ago. Before that the same group of authors created a brochure containing practical tips for child interrogation. Brochure contained tactical advices on child interrogation, on its conducting and implementing, howeverthis initial guide didn’t cover the entire practical sphere. Thus, necessity to create a new complete manual has emerged. “The handbook is based on International Law and is based on the analysis of provision of the draft of the Criminal Proceeding Code of RA (dated on 20.06.2013). The draft is still in the RA National Assembly, but once adopted, it will be quite relevant, since it presents the practical ways which can be widely used during the work with victim children”, – told D.Tumasyan.

Hence, as a result, the handbook consisting of two chapters represents both ational and international Legislation in classified way, further, actions committed with the participation of children and its tactics. The handbook also includes expamples from international practice, which can be applied in National Legislation. In his speech, Arthur Ghambaryan noted that the criminal proceedings which the handbook is based on are not accidental. From the practical point of view handbook’s advices which involve international experience and patterns make obvious the fact that States must pay proper attention not only to accused adults’ protection of rights, but also to victim children’s rights protection. All photos of presentation are available through following https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.970443076302429.1073741845.815159858497419&type=1

link:

BECOME AN ABOLITIONIST Fight against slavery today –- and everyday. 

KNOWLEDGE – The fight against human trafficking begins with knowledge. Educate yourself; educate others – the fight begins with you. Learning about human trafficking, the forms of existing slavery, and the efforts to combat trafficking are vital first steps in the anti-trafficking movement. Next, inform others: family, children, parents, friends, and co-workers. Be sure that they not only know about trafficking, but are also aware that it can happen anywhere in the world – including America. And it doesn’t just affect women and girls; it can and does affect men and boys as well. This degradation isn’t limited to any social or economic class, religion, country, race, ethnicity, sex, gender, or age. Anyone can potentially fall prey. Being aware will help keep both you and others safe in addition to preventing trafficking before it begins and therefore depleting the traffickers’ supply. Being aware of the dangers can save lives, including your own.

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DONATE - Consider making a donation. You don’t have to give much – the price of a lottery ticket, a fast food sandwich, a movie. By donating today, you can make an incredible and sustaining impact on the life of a trafficking survivor. While many anti-trafficking efforts are free, funds are still needed to provide innocent survivors with vital medical and social lifesaving services. Fortunately there are generous professionals who are willing to offer pro bono services, but the need exceeds the supply. Please help us replace all that’s been taken from these innocents through slavery and deprivation by offering them the chance of a healthy, happy, and hopeful life. Please consider saving a life and offering hope today.

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VOLUNTEER - Volunteer in your local community. There are many worthwhile organizations that are dedicated to human rights and specifically to the eradication of slavery. Most offer opportunities to get involved through grassroots initiatives, email campaigns, lobbying efforts, fundraising, community outreach and much more. There is always work to be done, and helping hands are needed. Volunteering is a great way to show support and effect change in the issues you care about most. It also allows you to meet like-minded individuals who share your passion, concern, and dedication.

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ENROLL - Enroll in our Professionals Giving Network. If you provide a medical or social service vital to the restoration of human trafficking survivors, please consider donating your time and services today. Without these valuable services, trafficking victims will be less likely to

successfully reintegrate back into our communities. Through our Professionals Giving Network, your generosity and compassion can restore a trafficking survivor and save a promising life. If you provide an essential service, trafficking survivors need your help now. 

NEWSLETTER - Sign up for our newsletter. It’s a great source of information to educate yourself as well as others. Encourage your family and friends to sign up for our newsletter or forward it on to them. Keep yourself informed of regular anti-trafficking efforts and successes.

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PETITION - Start a petition in your community, create an email campaign, or send a personal letter to your state and federal legislators. Let them know that you and your community support anti-trafficking efforts, trafficking legislation and penalties, and greater trafficking victim assistance funding. One person can effect change. But united, we are stronger. Make a stand today; be part of a united voice.

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VIGILANCE - Be vigilant. Learn to identify human trafficking victims: commercial sex workers, domestic servants, child soldiers, beggars, manual laborers, sweatshops workers, forced organ donors, and children used for land mine removal. You can save a life at any point anywhere. You can spot a girl in trouble, a woman being held against her will, a person trafficked from another country for domestic servitude, or a boy being prostituted. Too often we turn away, refuse to trust our instincts, believe there’s nothing we can do – but YOU can make a difference. You can rescue a life today; you can save a person tomorrow. You can make a difference by simply being observant of your surroundings and vigilant in recognizing the signs of human trafficking.

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STAND – Take a stand today. Decide that you will oppose human trafficking in any form. Buy fair-trade, slave-free, and sweat-free products and oppose commercial sex. Taking a stand against the exploitation of others can spare millions of people immeasurable pain by driving down the demand for trafficked persons. Decrease the demand for slaves by opposing slave derived products.