Anti-Human Trafficking National Contact Persons Conference ‘Stand Up for Justice’
by Catherine MALLET
The EU Affairs team contributed to different parts of the programme, including the AHT Task Force meeting which followed the annual conference. Among the country presentations the network welcomed new contact persons who had been appointed in Austria, Estonia, Iceland and Scotland.
During a workshop on the risk of trafficking amongst refugees we heard the very moving story of a woman who had been trafficked from a refugee camp in Africa to Europe and kept in slavery for one year before she went to the police and was supported by The Salvation Army to establish a life in the Netherlands.
A number of other projects were presented including
- Educational Film Project - byTamme de Leur – A Christian Journalist and documentary maker (link pending)
- An EU-funded multinational project ‘Safe Havens’ including the Netherlands as the lead Partner, Romania and Moldova.
- Job verification project as a preventative tool which is currently being piloted in Poland. Participants were shown how the simple concept could be replicated in their country.
Maj. Mike Stannett co-led a workshop on gender equality introducing the Barbershop Tool Kit: a resource to encourage men and boys to discuss their attitudes towards women. He suggested that perhaps this discussion should start in the Salvation Army Corps and social centres, ‘if not here then where?’ he stressed. Click here to download the Barbershop toolkit.
Participants also brainstormed initial ideas for the planned 2018 ‘reduce the demand’ campaign that a smaller group of Salvation Army delegates will develop in the coming months.
Tags: Europe