Anti-Trafficking Working Group’s meeting on the eve of World Day against Trafficking in Persons

From 29 to 31 July, 2016 with the support of OSCE’s Office, the regular meeting of the Anti-trafficking working group was launched in Tsakhkadzor.
The agenda included subjects directed to planning activities in the frames of combating against trafficking issues in Armenia, as well as the discussions, targeted researches and analysis of the reports made by International Organizations.
After the welcoming speech the Head of the Working Group V. Kazhoyan gave the floor to N. Asatryan, (the Representative of the International Organization for Migration (IOM)), who presented ” Detection of the Counteracting Gaps and Needs Assessment of Human Trafficking in South Caucasian Countries” program, which was implemented by IOM.
During the discussion of the new Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report of US State Department (published in July 1, 2016) was marked that due to Anti-Trafficking Working group investment Armenia has taken place in the first group countries already for the fourth consecutive year.
With the direct participation of M. Hovannisian (Member of the Working Group, the INL Program Assistant) studied in details TIP Report’s sections: “Recommendations for Armenia,”, “Prosecution”, “Protection” and “Prevention”.
It was decided to step up efforts and practical steps to implement the recommendations, listed in the TIP report regarding to Armenia. While considering the proposals, it was revealed that the two of the ten offers from the TIP report suggestions are problematic.
These are:

• Improve efforts to identify victims of forced labor, including by strengthening victim identification training for officials,
• Work with Russian authorities to identify Armenian forced labor victims and prosecute labor traffickers.

It was clear that the recommendations for licensing, regulating, and educating local employment agencies and agents are difficult to accomplish in a year. After discussions, here was decided to explore the possibilities for identification of Armenian victims in Turkey and to ensure the necessary mechanism of their safe return to homeland with the use of IOM’s resources and capabilities.
It was also decided to schedule the activities of Ministries/Departments and NGOs, aimed at raising awareness among the population.
The existing problems and identification processes of the Trafficked Victims were the Agenda’s highlighted chapters as well.
E. Virapyan (The Representative of Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs) made a summary report about the activities of Committee that Identifying Trafficking Victims.
Notable were analyzes, current statistics, the amount of aid covered by RA State Institutions, and awareness rising activities of the target groups.
E. Virapyan also highlighted the problems arising during the working processes. She noted that the lack of identification of indicators is one of the main problems in response to the IOM Representative (N. Asatryan) informed that these indicators will be developed in the near future with the assistance of their office.
E. Virapyan dedicated that the Committee members visited a number of regions, where they presented new mechanisms of the victims’ identification and assistance to various stakeholders: Doctors, Police Officers, Social Workers, Employment Agents, in order to enlarge the awareness block values.
D. Tumasyan (The representative of Investigative Committee of RA) made his legal observations in the frames of the law (Human Trafficking and identification and assistance of trafficked persons), which were taken into consideration and it was decided to come up with this question in a near future.
Working Group Members also took into their consideration preparations procedure for Madina Zharbusinova’s (Anti-Trafficking Special Representative of the OSCE Chairman) upcoming visit to Armenia in October, 2016. As a result of the discussions, it was decided to arrange M. Zharbusinova’s interview on Public TV, conference or round table discussions with the Working Group Members and State Representatives.

The next topic of the meeting dealt with the Transnational Mechanisms of Victims’ Identification and Guidance Support, which was delivered by L. Hakobyan (The Secretary of the Working Group). She basically introduced the details of her visit to Strasbourg, from June 21 to 22 in current year, where had been presented Transnational Models which had already been used to Identify and Support the Victims.
Here were also discussed a number of topics connected with sustainable participation of State Representatives, Covering the Finance issues of www.antitrafficking.am webpage, the Australian defenders’ report on slavery, the initiative of becoming member of “Group of Friends United against Human Trafficking” mentored by Belarus, monitoring mechanisms for the previous national program…
It is vital to highlight O. Babayan’s (The Representative of OSCE, Yerevan Office) suggestion that OSCE is ready to cover  Monitoring Processes, establishment of the methodology and Independent Experts’ elections.
In a summary, another productive meeting was held during those 3 days, directed to the arrangement of activities, which were aimed to neutralize Human Trafficking Issues.