Hungary Mid-term assessment of child trafficking trends in Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia

9 Oct 2008 |

On the 6-7 October 2008, the Regional Workshop in Southeast Europe was held in Budapest. As the most important mid-term event of the project, participants were invited from project member organizations (Tdh-Child Relief, CLISP, PVPT, Open Gate-La Strada) and their partners such as government officials and journalists from the region.

The objectives of the workshop were to assess and exchange experiences of the first half of the project and also find similar practices to fight against child trafficking in the region. At the first section of the meeting, general context of child trafficking in Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia were discussed after joint presentations of the invited government officials and head of the NGOs. Then, participants identified best practices and common challenges of the region in three working groups. As a final conclusion of the discussions, problems of identification of presumed victims, lack of efficient coordination among actors and weak implementation were emphasized.

On the second day of the meeting, specific topics as media and other stakeholders’ relation were discussed based on the introductory presentations of journalists and press officers. At the afternoon project review session, partners focused on the assessment of the past cooperation in the framework of the project and developed new performance indicators for better monitoring of the project progress in the future. The meeting also created opportunities for networking and developing new platforms for future cooperation among different actors of counter-trafficking interventions.