Promoting the Participation of Civil Society in Public Budgeting Linked to Trafficking in Human Beings

The aim of this project was to promote transparency of government to the civil society as a civil right and to support process of social accountability of government regarding allocation of budget resources assigned for counter-trafficking activities. In addition, the project’s aim was to identify sources for collecting relevant data and opinions related to allocation of financial resources for combating trafficking in human beings in the states’ annual budget, and to recognize eventual obstacles for the treatment of anti-trafficking as a priority issue.Project was conducted in two phases, first being identification of sources of information and collection of data from relevant stakeholders and second being information analysis, development and distribution of a study. Thorough, relevant and valid information on whether some financial resources for combating trafficking are allocated in the states’ annual budget, what are the obstacles and should anti-trafficking activities be treated as a priority issue were questioned, and the information were collected from relevant ministries – Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Human and Minority Rights, Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Affairs. Informations were also collected from relevant international and local NGOs.

Processed data were included in development of a comparative analysis which provided review on following topics:

1. international provisions on preventing and punishing crimes of trafficking in human beings;
2. domestic legislation and practice;
3. analysis of the National Action Plan on Combating Trafficking and its status in comparison with PRSP, Roma National Strategy, National Youth Strategy, reports, recommendations and general comments of international organizations such are Council of Europe, European Union, etc;
4. conclusions and recommendations on measures that should be carried out in order to create environment for sustainable allocation of financial resources for combating trafficking.