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). Read More
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. Read More
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. Read More
Every year, the government of Uzbekistan forcibly mobilizes more than a million of its own citizens to pick cotton. Under international pressure, the authorities in Tashkent have recently moved away from forcing young children to pick cotton. But the system still depends on exporting cotton picked by adults who are essentially government slaves. Read More
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. Read More
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.
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. Read More
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.
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.
Oct. 18th 2014 marked Anti-Slavery Day in the U.K. and Anti-Trafficking Day in Europe. It provides an opportunity to highlight the significance of the global anti-slavery movement at a time when there are more people in slavery than in the entire 350-year history of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Read More