European Commission and Ireland to grant EUR 1 mln for combating trafficking in human beings in Moldova and Ukraine

The European Commission (EC) and the Government of Ireland will provide EUR 936 thousand in order to implement in Moldova the project “Elimination of trafficking in human beings from Moldova and Ukraine by means of the labour market”. The European assistance will be granted through AENEAS programme, which aims at providing financial and technical assistance in migration and asylum. The project was launched on Tuesday, March 13 and will be implemented by the International Labour Organisation programme/Migrant, International Centre for Migration Policy Development (Vienna) in partnership with the Ministry of Economy and Commerce. The project is aiming at working out efficient measures related to employment, regulation of the labour migration, improving the protection mechanism of illegal migrants and of the victims of trafficking in human beings, as well as intensifying the dialogue and cooperation between the Governmental Agencies, social partners and civil society. The project is expected to improve the legislation establishing migration policies; easy access for the potential migrants to information related to migration and legal methods of migration, strengthening the capacity of public institutions to manage the labour migration, more active involvement of trade unions and patronages in working out policies and providing assistance to the trafficked persons and potential migrants. Ala Lipciu, ILO national correspondent told the launching conference that Moldova signed last summer the Country Programme on decent labour, which became a strategic assistance framework with a view to fulfilling several objectives which include aspects related to the labour force migration. Several of them are the development of the labour market, creation of new jobs, providing proper social protection, promotion of social dialogue and strengthening capacities of social actors for plenary participation in the creation of country policies. According to the cited source, ILO is launching the assistance on the basis of the country programme, by means and support of a series of projects, such as the International Programme for the elimination of child labour, ILO Programme/Migrant, HIV/AIDS and the world of labour etc. Head of Political and Economic Department of the EC Delegation to Moldova Paolo Berrizi said that this project would not replace the Government in its efforts to stop traffic, as it is based on the development and strengthening of Government’s capacities in its work related to the elimination of the trafficking in human beings and illegal migration. In 2005, ILO carried out the first global estimation of the number of person forced to work, finding a number of 12.3 mln persons or one in 500 persons in the world. Illicit incomes obtained by traffickers amount USD 32 bln annually. According to the estimations of ILO, the number of migrants from Moldova varies between 370 and 600 thousand persons.