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The Belgrade Center for Human Rights held the third workshop within the project “Support to (potential) victims of migrant smuggling and human trafficking (THB) in Serbia”, which is supported within the regional project “EU Support to Strengthen the Fight against Migrant Smuggling and Trafficking in Human Beings in the Western Balkans” – EU4FAST implemented by a consortium of partners led by the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ)*.
Together with the representatives from the Center for the Protection of Victims of Human Trafficking, we visited the Krnjača Asylum Center and organized a workshop on the topic of “Prevention of Human Trafficking, Smuggling and Labor Exploitation”. During the first session, the persons housed in the center were introduced to the terms related to human trafficking, as well as the risks and examples from practice that the Center for the Protection of Victims of Human Trafficking encountered in its work. In the second session, the participants were more familiarized with the asylum procedure and the rights and obligations they have as asylum seekers. Most of the people we talked to were from Burundi and they shared with us their experience of coming to Serbia and the problems they encountered along the way. Protection mechanisms were explained to them, including what kind of help and support they can get in Serbia. The focus of the workshop was also on labor exploitation and the risks affecting refugees, as a particularly vulnerable category.
The workshops were held as part of a project that includes the provision of free legal aid in asylum centers, reception and transit centers of the Commissariat for Refugees and Migration. The project aims to improve the early identification of (potential) victims of human trafficking through access to information, legal assistance and further referral to specialized state and non-state actors. The aim of the project is to improve the provision of primary free legal aid, access to the territory, access to the asylum procedure and support in the integration and reintegration of (potential) victims of smuggling and human trafficking.
The EU4FAST regional project is jointly funded by the following institutions: the European Union (DG NEAR), the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the Italian Ministry of the Interior and the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
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*The Austrian Ministry of Interior, the German Federal Police (Bundespolizei), the Dutch Center for International Legal Cooperation (CILC), the international technical cooperation operator of the French Ministry of the Interior CIVIPOL, the Croatian Ministry of the Interior, the Italian Ministry of the Interior and the Slovenian Ministry of the Interior.
