GREECE/ROMANIA/FILE: Southeastern European nations look at joint police plan to combat human trafficking

Officials from the countries of southeastern Europe, a hotbed for human trafficking, have met in Athens to join forces against the trade and discuss an ambitious action plan that would bridge police forces across borders. In a conference chaired by Greece and EU Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini, the meeting brought together police chiefs from the Balkans and southeastern Europe to study a Greek designed project codenamed ILAEIRA, that will allow law enforcement officials to swiftly coordinate in uncovering traffickers and their victims. One of the most important elements of the plan is the sharing of information between countries to unravel the network of gangs, and includes coordinated actions to detect the movements of traffickers on both sides of borders as well simultaneous operations to protect and transfer victims from transit countries to their countries of origin. The conference was attended by international organizations including Interpol, Europol, Frontex and Eurojust who supported the strategy. Ulrike Haberl Schwarz, Vice President of Eurojust - an EU body of prosecutors and judges which helps in prosecuting criminals - applauded the project, saying a harmonization of efforts by many bodies, including police forces, was necessary to tackle the problem, which often lacked enough resources. "Everywhere the same difficulty to have the needed resources available to combat in an efficient way, crimes like this very complex phenomenon of organized crime. It's difficult to see the whole picture because very often these organized groups they are not only dealing with trafficking in human beings but also trafficking in drugs, arms," she said. Greek authorities say the goal of ILAEIRA is to initiate swift action by authorities before the trail could be allowed to run cold. The plan is expected to be tested in forthcoming months. Greece is one of the main gateways of transit of victims from southeast Europe to the European Union. Officials from Southeastern European countries and the Balkans welcomed the plan and said they were willing to participate. Ukraine's deputy interior minister Volodymyr Yevdokymou said regional cooperation, along with the help of international organisations, had bared positive results in the Ukraine, a country of origin for victims and traffickers. "The situation is becoming more controlled and improving each year. In 1999 we uncovered only two cases of this crime, this year we have uncovered 400 criminal cases. We have returned 350 victims back to Ukraine of which 43 were minors," he said. But the smooth cooperation and coordination of police across so many nations, said one Albanian official, would require the building trust in a region where most countries come from a communist past and may shelter political prejudices. "We face a lack of trust many times and we understand this is because we have been working separate for many years. And we want to build this trust. We want to help, we want to show that we care about these problems and that we are open and we hope that trust will come. But trust can only come if we do things together," Eva Zajmi, Albanian deputy interior minister in charge of anti-trafficking coordination said. Frattini said that in 2007 multilingual telephone hotlines would be launched in each of the European Union countries for human trafficking victims to call for help as part of an EU effort. He said projects that promoted regional cooperation such as ILAEIRA were the key to success with the increasing numbers of trafficking cases. "We estimate a growing volume of victims trafficked in the region, coming to this region, or coming from this region to the other member states of Europe or passing through the region. We estimate every year the enormous, huge number of some 250, 000 victims mostly children and girls." According to a 2006 United Nations report of the office on Drugs and Crime, some the most prominent Southeastern European countries of origin of victims of human trafficking include Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, and Lithuania. Many of the countries in the region are used as transit points to bring victims to western Europe. Of the most popular destination countries are Germany, Belgium, Italy, Greece and the Netherlands, followed by France, UK, Switzerland, and Spain. The largest percentage of victims are women and children who are sexually exploited.

ITN Source | December 11, 2006

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