Donor: European Union

Project duration: March 2020 – March 2023

Balkan Refugee and Migration Council and its member organizations have, through this project, focused their attention on one of the burning issues related to migrants in the region – smuggling of migrants. The aim of the project is to lead to the development of a comprehensive regional migration management program based on the needs of protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms of migrants, through a multidimensional partnership of civil society organizations and state institutions.

Accordingly, 90 civil society organizations will go through a process of developing protection-sensitive practices, legal frameworks and public policies against human trafficking. In this way, civil society organizations, along with the development of cooperation with state institutions, media and educational institutions, will be able to provide support to smuggled migrants. Through advocacy activities, the project strives for closer harmonization of practices and legal frameworks of the Western Balkan countries.

The two main migration routes on the way to the European Union are through Serbia and from the Greek-Albanian border through Bosnia
and Herzegovina to Croatia and Slovenia. The project lead is Group 484, and the implementing partners are the Belgrade Centre for Human Rights (BCHR), the Macedonian Association of Young Lawyers (MYLA), Vaša prava Bosnia and Herzegovina (VP BiH), the Civic Alliance from Montenegro (GAMN), the Albanian Helsinki Committee (AHC) and the Civil Rights Program Kosovo (CRP/K).