programs and activities

drop-in center Manager: Tatiana Buianina - Psychologist, Post-graduate Student in Psychology E-Mail:tbuianina@lastrada.md
	contents: general information social assistance to victims of women trafficking consolidation of the capacities of the professional groups consolidation of efforts for providing assistance to trafficked persons elaboration of informative and educational materials

Argument

According to national and international findings, significant number of victims of trafficking is still identified rather as illegal or undocumented migrants and subject to deportation. Thus they do not have access to assistance and protection . In the end they are re-victimized and found themselves back in the same environment that increases their level of vulnerability. Over 50% of the total number of victims identified and assisted by the La Strada International Center during the last two years has been identified among deported ones.

The recent study conducted by the La Strada in the framework of the OSCE Program “Strengthening Protection and Assistance of Trafficked Persons, Adults and Minors” aimed at assessing the current infrastructure for the identification, assistance and protection fo victims has revealed a series of gaps among which the first and most important is limited access of victims to assistance and protection followed by limited assistance package for those identified and referred to assistance and final one relates to multiple violations of basic victims’ rights in the process of assistance and protection. Among the grounds of these gaps are lack of a flexible and immediate system of victims’ identification, lack of standard operational procedures for victim’s identification and, lack of standard operational procedures for victim’s assistance and protection.

The mission of the Contact Center is to promote the protection of rights of the human trafficking victims, to ensure control transparency and quality of the provided services to the victims, contributing to the consolidation of national capacity for counteracting the traffic via cooperation between NGOs and Governmental Organizations.

Beneficiaries:

1. primary level – victims of trafficking in persons, especially women and children
2. secondary level – professional groups working with victims of trafficking and service providers on both national and international level (social workers, psychologists, doctors, lawyers, police other)

Objectives:

1. Facilitate the access to quality based and secure assistance for the trafficked persons
2. Optimize the services provided to the victims of human trafficking
3. Capacity building for professional groups
4. Elaboration of technical, educational and information materials
5. Trainings and exchange of good practices at the national and international level

Capacities:

A.

• National Hot Line 0 800 77777 (with a free of charge call from the whole territory of the Republic of Moldova) and International (+373 22) 23 33 09 (for a free of charge call from abroad), confidential, which provides indirect/informational assistance to victims of human trafficking (VHT) and their relatives – circa 1400 cases of informational counseling;
• Multi-field mobile team, which provides assistance in identifying the victims of human trafficking, evaluation of risks and necessities, direct assistance to the victims (assistance for recovery from the place of exploitation, repatriation (meeting at the place of arrival), referring to other organizations which provide special assistance / escorting to the place of providing the assistance services (accommodation, medical, juridical, psychological assistance etc.), including psychological assistance to the minors, VHT, assistance during the process of interrogation in case of criminal cases, re-education, re-training, intervention in cases of psychological and social crises (over 60 site visits – totally over 300 cases of assistance;
• Fund for emergency assistance (humanitarian assistance/welfare, covering of costs for medical, juridical, psychological assistance etc.) – over 200 beneficiaries.

B.

• Professional capacity building programs – over 500 of trained specialists (teachers, representatives of NGOs, mass-media, policemen, priests);
• Instruction modules (standard and at request) for different categories of professionals (specialists of the Ministry of Health and Social Protection, Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport, National Agency for Occupation of Labor Force, social assistants within the NGOs, representatives of diplomatic missions, policemen, priests);
• Didactic materials, technical supports (social assistance provided to the victims of women trafficking and preventive measures against the phenomenon. Practice Guide; Social assistance to the victims of trafficking in persons, especially in women. Practice Guide for social assistants and psychologists; „Step by step”. Informative brochure meant for the trafficking victims traficului. Good practices of assisting the victims of trafficking in human beings; Good practices of reintegration of women, victims of trafficking and their children) – over 4.000 copies;
• Non-traditional information campaigns – Social Campaign „I care about...” (sensitizing the public at large with respect to the phenomenon of trafficking in human beings, changing the attitude of the community with respect to the victims of trafficking in human beings etc.) – the convoy of mobile offices in Chisinau city (4 public activities) and in 36 district centers, with the participation of a team of volunteers accounting to more than 50 persons – over 60.000 of distributed information materials and informed citizens.

C.

• Reference system (database with national players) – 100 organizations;
• Database with international players – 822 organizations from 78 countries of the world;
• Standard procedures of co-assistance between partner-organizations etc. – over 900 service providers at the national and international level.

D.

• Trainings, exchange of experience and good practices in the field, at the national and international level – Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Romania;
• Recognized experts in the field of human trafficking counteraction, management and counselling via the Hot Line, information dissemination, elaboration of informative and technical materials etc., at the national and international level.