DOHA: The UN Trust Fund for Victims of Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, helps victims reclaim their dignity and lives, the audience heard during a high-level session on the margins of the third day of the 13th UN Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice yesterday.
Yury Fedotov, Executive Director, UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), said the fund was helping today’s victims become tomorrow’s survivors.
“Some 2,000 victims annually benefitted from direct assistance, including provision of shelter, basic health services, vocational training and schooling, as well as psychosocial, legal and economic support,” he said.
Fedotov used his speech to bring home appalling experiences of trafficking survivors, whose names had been changed to protect their identity. They include girls such as Skye, trafficked to India when she was 13. She escaped and returned home in Nepal and filed a case against her trafficker.
With the help of Shakti Samuha, a Nepal-based non-profit organisation that received support from the UN fund, Skye won her case. She has finished school and works as a staff member at the organisation, helping other survivors.
The event was chaired by Benita Ferrero-Waldner, Chair of the Board of Trustees, UN Trust Fund.
Other speakers included UN Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially in women and children, Maria Grazia Giammarinaro, and Sunita Damuwar, President, Shakti Samuha Board, and Paul Adepelumi, Executive Director, African Centre for Advocacy and Human Development (ACAHD).
The fund was established through the UN General Assembly’s 2010 Global Plan of Action to Combat Trafficking in Persons and is administered by UNODC.
It provides humanitarian, legal and financial aid to victims through governmental, inter-governmental and non-governmental organisations.
Since it became operational in November 2010, the fund has received over $2m in paid contributions from 19 countries and more than 30 private-sector donors.
Eleven projects in Albania, Cambodia, Costa Rica, the Czech Republic, France, Kenya, Israel, Moldova, Nepal, Nigeria and the US received nearly $750,000 in the fund’s first call for projects.
A new project will provide nearly $1m for 17 projects.
Meanwhile, Fedotov told a high-level special event on terrorism financing that said the links between terrorists and criminals have strengthened over the last decade.
“…we have witnessed the strengthening and increased sophistication of links between transnational organised criminal networks and terrorists in many regions of the world,” he said.
He said the gravity of the worrying nexus had been recognised by the UN Security Council in its recent resolutions 2195 and 2199. Both highlighted the importance of redoubling efforts to prevent terrorists from benefiting from transnational organised crime.
“Going after the terrorist ‘business model’ and disrupting financial flows remains a major challenge that requires a comprehensive, integrated approach that reaches out to all sectors and actors involved, private and public and leaves no gaps for the terrorists and criminals to exploit,” Fedotov said.
He said criminals were the weak link due to the likelihood they would be detected.
On terrorism financing, he said groups often funnelled money via countries with poor counter-financing laws and expertise.
International cooperation is essential in these areas as is ratifying and implementing conventions against transnational organised crime and corruption.
Fedotov said UNODC’s Global Programme against Money Laundering, Proceeds of Crime and Financing of Terrorism also had an important role in global efforts to counter terrorists.
To support member states, he said, the UN had created a working group chaired by UNODC on countering financing of terrorism, as part of the Counterterrorism Implementation Task Force.
He said UNODC was pushing ahead with promoting ratification and full implementation of the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism.
Fedotov said the nexus between terrorists and criminals was “an evolving threat, with ever-changing modi operandi. We need to be swift, innovative and ready to learn”.
Another session focused on the work of two NGOs assisting victims of trafficking in persons in Nepal and Nigeria with the support of the UN fund, and discussed the importance of assisting victims not only as a humanitarian act but also as a necessary part of the overall fight against trafficking in persons.
It called for increased and sustained financial support for the fund to address the growing need for assistance to victims of trafficking in persons worldwide.
The third day of the Congress also featured discussions and workshops on the UN’s work.
Experts discussed several subjects in the presence of ministers of interior and justice, attorney generals, public prosecutors and high-level delegations at Qatar National Convention Centre.
One session focused on the role of UN standards and norms in crime prevention and criminal justice in support of effective, fair, humane and accountable criminal justice systems: experiences and lessons learned in meeting the unique needs of women and children, in particular the treatment and social reintegration of offenders, trafficking in persons and smuggling of migrants: successes and challenges in criminalisation, mutual legal assistance and effective protection of witnesses and trafficking victims.
A session on ‘Moving Away from the Death Penalty — Death penalty, drugs and terrorism, UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)’ was moderated by Ivan Šimonovic, UN Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights. The welcome address was given by Italian Minister of Justice Andrea Orlando.
Christof Heyns, UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions; Taghreed Jaber, Regional Director, Penal Reform International Middle East and North Africa; Jeffrey Fagan, Isidor, and Seville Sulzbacher, Professor of Law, Columbia Law School, New York were panel members.
Other sessions included ‘United Nations Rule of Law Assistance in Conflict-and Post-Conflict Settings: The Global Focal Point Arrangement, UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) and the UN Development Programme (UNDP)’, ‘Strengthening national and international cooperation in preventing and countering terrorist financing’ and ‘Implementation of UN Principles and Guidelines on Access to Legal Aid in Criminal Justice Systems: Follow-up on the Johannesburg Declaration’.
Speaking at a session on ‘Experiences on reorientation and rehabilitation of juvenile’ Christian Ranheim, Head, Raoul Wallenberg Institute, Indonesia, said children taken for legal actions have the right to legal representation and a lawyer must attend with the juvenile during investigation and plead before the courts.
The Peninsula
