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E-Bulletin from RENATE_2016.05.13 compiled by RENATE Communications Person.
E-Bulletin from RENATE
E-Bulletin from RENATE_2016.05.13 compiled by RENATE Communications Person.
Three years on from the collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Bangladesh on the 24th of April, 2013, which took the lives of over 1,100 garment workers and highlighted the need to promote decent work in global supply chains, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) has compiled a photo report of their response to the Rana Plaza tragedy.
In remembering all those who lost their lives in the tragedy, RENATE takes a look at what progress has been made through joint partnerships between the European Union and the International Labour Organisation, to promote decent work practices in European countries engaged in global supply chains.
For more, please see the following: Safeguarding Work Conditions for Vulnerable Workers
Prepared by Anne Kelleher, RENATE Communications Person
Jana Urbanová, a member of RENATE, working for the STOP Human Trafficking project at Caritas Slovakia attended the above workshop which took place in London, from the 20th to 21st of April, 2016. The workshop was part of a project being run by the following NGOs:
FLEX – Focus on Labour Exploitation from Great Britain,
FairWork from the Netherlands,
ADPARE from Romania.
The aim of the joint project is to develop a common strategic plan in relation to victims, trafficked for forced labour, through proactive identification and support. It is intended that the plan would be applicable throughout all the member states of the European Union.
The research commenced in 2014, having identified gaps in the existing processes of identification. With the help of many countries participating in the first European workshop and based on the research results, strategies were developed which would help improve the process of identification and support people who are trafficked for labour exploitation.
The pilot strategies for identification have been tested in the three partner countries (Great Britain, the Netherlands and Romania), over a period of six months, which lead to this second joint workshop in London, in April 2016. Representatives from Austria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Ireland, the Netherlands, Romania, Slovakia, Spain and the United Kingdom attended, representing non-profit organisations, trade unions, lawyers and social workers. It is intended that the outcome of this initiative and the application of strategies will be presented in September 2016.
More about the project: https://ec.europa.eu/anti-trafficking/eu-projects-and-funding/proactive-identification-and-support-victims-trafficking-labour-exploitation_en
Mgr. Jana Urbanová, Prevention Campaigns Coordinator at Caritas Slovakia
www.obchodsludmi.sk
www.charita.sk
Adapted by Anne Kelleher, RENATE Communications Person
It might appear that human trafficking is a problem which is far removed from Ireland and that the term ‘Slavery’ refers to a bygone era.
Gráinne Loughran, in writing for the University Observer, discovers that modern slavery is a worldwide, secretive and multi-billion dollar business, in which vulnerable people are exploited by others for personal, financial gain.
Drawing upon statistics from the Blue Blindfold site, the Migrant Rights Centre Ireland (MRCI) and RUHAMA, Miss Loughran paints a picture of criminal exploitation where it is suspected that the vast majority of the victims of trafficking who were identified by the authorities, have been forced into sexual exploitation.
For the full article, please see;
http://www.universityobserver.ie/features/modern-day-slavery-tackling-irelands-human-trafficking-problem/
Prepared by Anne Kelleher, RENATE Communications Person
Believing human trafficking is a public health issue, a number of health-care professionals in the USA have created an organisation named Heal Trafficking, whose vision is “A world healed of trafficking”.
Education, advocacy and networking are the cornerstones of the organisation which believes that effectively confronting commercial sexual exploitation and sex trafficking requires informed professionals who are equipped to identify, respond and prevent these crimes.
A recent article by Dan Gorenstein, at the Marketplace’s Health Desk, highlights the disbelief of medical staff at an Emergency Room Department of a hospital in the US in October, 2015, when they encountered a patient who presented with a GPS tracking device (an RFID chip) implanted in her body by her trafficker.
Apart from the indignity to the human person, there are serious concerns for maintaining the anonymity of care-workers and those who run shelters and safe-houses, as they work to support victims of human trafficking and abuse.
In recent years, healthcare professionals in the US have accepted they can play a vital part in the fight against trafficking, sometimes unwittingly encountering victims through routine emergency medicine activity.
The mission of Heal Trafficking may very well be one which will travel across borders and continents, in order to address this latest and base development in the profile of trafficking and exploitation of human beings.
More information at:
www.healtrafficking.org
www.marketplace.org
Compiled by Anne Kelleher, RENATE Communications Person
E-Bulletin from RENATE_2016.04.15 compiled by RENATE Communications Person.
UN Headquarters, New York, 7th April, 2016
At the invitation of the Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, Sister Imelda Poole, IBVM, President of RENATE, was amongst a distinguished panel of speakers, invited to present at the Conference entitled Ending Human Trafficking by 2030: The Role of Global Partnerships in Eradicating Modern Slavery. The Conference co-organised by the Santa Marta Group, named after Pope Francis’ Vatican residence and founded in 2014, aims to strengthen and coordinate the global response to combatting human trafficking and all forms of modern slavery and to galvanise the coordination necessary to implement Targets 5.2, 8.7 and 16.2 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Imelda outlined the extent of the work of RENATE and the many Woman Religious with their co-workers, working across 24 European countries to end the slavery of human trafficking.
For more, please see Imelda Poole, IBVM_UN talk_07.04.2016
The French Government voted 64:12 to penalise the buyers of sex, equating the purchase of a sexual act with direct support of pimping, organised crime and sex trafficking, on the 6th of April, 2016. The vote was taken calling upon the country’s abolitionist tradition and its fundamental principles of democracy, human rights and women’s equality. France is now amongst an increasing number of countries around the world that are making formal, legislated efforts to end demand for paid sex. This is also central to the fight against pimping, procuring and trafficking.
Ms. Rosen Hicher, a survivor of prostitution and key member of Abolition 2012 – a collective of over 60 French organizations and survivors – has been to the forefront of championing the passage of this new legislation. Ms. Hicher walked 800 kilometres across France in 2014 to raise awareness about the pervasive harms that ‘clients’ perpetrate on prostituted women and girls, who constitute the overwhelming majority of individuals bought and sold in the sex trade.
“In our discourse about prostitution, we only talk about the prostituted, rarely of the pimp and never about the ‘client,'” says Ms. Hicher, who is also a member of SPACE International – a global advocacy network of sex trade survivors. “Today, France has come to understand that without buyers, the business of prostitution would not exist. We still have a lot of work ahead of us, but today, we won.”
Some general details of the new law are as follows:
(1) Aims to protect exploited persons in the sex trade;
(2) Offers access to financial compensation for victims of prostitution and trafficking;
(3) Mandates the implementation of a National exit policy to give victims access to social services, including housing, and the creation of school programs to discuss sexual commodification and exploitation;
(4) Grants temporary residency permits to foreign victims of sex trafficking.
For full information, please see http://www.womenlobby.org/Journee-historique-pour-les-droits-des-femmes-la-France-choisit-l-abolition-du
Prepared by Anne Kelleher, RENATE Communications Person
Imelda Poole, IBVM, President of RENATE, was invited to speak at the UN on “Ending Human Trafficking by 2030: The Role of Global Partnerships in Eradicating Modern Slavery.”
You might like to tune in to the UN website webtv.un.org on April 7th, 2016, from 15.00-18.30 (United States Eastern Standard Time), to follow the event which is going to be streamlined. The European time equivalent is 20:00 – 23:30 GMT (e.g. London, Dublin) and 21:00 – 00:30 GMT+1 (e.g. Amsterdam, Berlin, Bratislava, Prague, Warsaw). It will be an opportunity to hear the President of RENATE and an array of other distinguished panelists invited by the Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations. This conference is co-organized by the Santa Marta Group and the full programme involves input from 19 speakers, as per the attached schedule.
The Holy Father Pope Francis will send a personal message to all present. Cardinal Nichols of Westminster, Ms. Mira Sorvino, the UN Goodwill Ambassador against Human Trafficking, UK’s first Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner, Mr. Kevin Hyland and the President of the UN General Assembly, H.E. Mr. Mogens Lykketoft, will keynote the conference. The UN Secretary-General is also invited.
It is a great privilege for RENATE that our President is amongst the array of international and United Nations speakers.
Timing of Speakers’ Program
Prepared by Anne Kelleher, RENATE Communications Person
E-Bulletin from RENATE_2016.03.30 compiled by RENATE Communications Person.