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OSCE Mission to Georgia by Women’S Information Centre (Georgia) Under Leadership of Ms Women’s Informational Centre Responses to Trafficking in Persons in Georgia: An Assessment Tbilisi 2007 The assessment has been conducted between May and December 2007 within the framework of the project “Research of phenomenon of trafficking in human beings in Georgia” implemented with the financial support of the OSCE Mission to Georgia by Women’s Information Centre (Georgia) under leadership of Ms. Helen Rusetsky. The assessment has been prepared with the support of OSCE experts Ms. Alexandra Delemenchuk (Ukraine) and Dr. Blanka Hancilova (Apreco Group, Austria). Authors: Alexandra Delemenchuk – external adviser of the Women’s Information Centre Blanka Hancilova – OSCE Expert (Apreco Group, [email protected]) Helen Rusetsky – Coordinator of the Women’s Information Centre Women’s Information Center 40 Tsinamdzgvrishvili str., Tbilisi 0102 Georgia + 995 32 952934 [email protected] www.wicge.org Views and terminology expressed in this publication do not necessarily imply endorsement by the OSCE. 2 Table of Contents I. Acknowledgements II. List of Abbreviations III. Executive summary 1. Introduction 1.1. Research methodology 2. Overview of the anti-trafficking action in Georgia 3. Description of the National Referral Mechanism 4. Policy recommendations Annex 1 List of the conducted interviews 3 Acknowledgements Authors would like to thank to all agencies, organizations and experts who made their contributed to this report. We also want to acknowledge kind support of Ms. Ia Dadunashvili, Ms. Nino Gogoladze and the OSCE Mission to Georgia team for their inputs. List of Abbreviations ABA/ROL – American Bar Association, Rule of Law Initiative EU - European Union GEL – Georgian Lari GYLA - Georgian Young Lawyers Association IO - International Organization IOM - International Organization for Migration MFA – Ministry of Foreign Affairs NGO - Non-governmental Organization NPA - National Plan of Action NRM – National Referral Mechanism OSCE - Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe TiHB - Trafficking in Human Beings UAE - United Arab Emirates UN - United Nation US - United States of America USAID - United States Agency for International Development VoT – Victim of Trafficking 4 Executive summary Presented assessment is a policy-oriented study of responses to trafficking in persons with special focus on the following issues: • Mechanisms for evaluation and monitoring within the national response mechanisms such as the National Referral Mechanism for trafficked persons (NRM) and for the implementation of the National Plan of Action (NPA); • Coordination between various parts of the NRM, other stakeholders and civil society groups; • Implementation of the NPA: progress and possible areas of concern; • Existing informational needs within the different groups of the stakeholders and identification of the existing sources of data; • Existing gaps in the legal base and law enforcement mechanisms; • Identification and referral of trafficked persons and their access to justice. The assessment was based on a combination of qualitative methodologies, drawing on the substantial contribution of qualitative research – that is culturally-specific and contextually rich data. It was carried out between June and December 2007 by the authors. 5 Introduction Present report explores the state responses to trafficking in human beings between 2000 and 2007. It aims at documenting the achievements and identifying the gaps in current anti- trafficking response. Georgia is a source and transit country of the victims of trafficking. Girls and women are primarily trafficked to the UAE and Turkey for the purpose of sexual exploitation, whereas girls and women from Ukraine, Moldova, the Russian Federation and other former Soviet states are trafficked through Georgia to Turkey, Greece and the UAE and Western Europe. Men are mainly trafficked for the purpose of forced labour. At the same time, victims are trafficked to the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia for forced labour1. In the recent years Georgian institutions are increasingly taking ownership in combating trafficking in human beings. In particular they have moved on establishing the National Referral Mechanism for victims of trafficking. The Georgian government adopted several National Action Plans to combat trafficking in human beings, established victim-oriented National Referral Mechanism, and relevant institutions to coordinate the activities in the field and support assistance and reintegration of victims of trafficking. The report reviews and assesses the steps taken with the aim to identify lessons learned and shortcomings of the responses undertaken up-to-date and in order to inform the agenda setting and in particular the development of the National Action Plan for 2009-2010. It is clear that the Government of Georgia is dynamically undertaking measures to suppress trafficking in persons in Georgia and for the purpose of prevention of this crime to conduct respective wide public awareness campaign. To meet the requirements of the well-known “three Ps:” Prevention, Protection and Prosecution, active measures have been taken both at the legislative and executive levels in order to prevent and suppress trafficking in persons. At the same time, despite numerous achievements, the researchers encountered difficulties in collecting information from state agencies and thy noted that coordination with NGOs was at times absent. Also, it seems that in some cases, law-enforcement agencies, failed to adopt a human rights approach to trafficked persons. Finally, mechanisms to access and identify trafficked persons are not sufficiently developed, as are strategies for long-term support of victims of trafficking and their reintegration. The research paper is divided into three thematic sections. The first section focuses on the overview of the anti-trafficking action in Georgia, which sets the framework in which the national action plans were designed and legislative framework was created. The second section focuses on the description of the National Referral Mechanisms and the functions of the institutions constituting part of the NRM. The third section draws conclusions and proposes possible policy recommendations to be considered while planning future actions in the field. 1 Trafficking in Persons Report, US Department of State, Office of the Under Secretary for Democratic and Global affairs and Bureau of Public Affairs, June 2007 6 Research methodology The present assessment is a policy-oriented study of responses to trafficking in persons with special focus on the following issues: • Mechanisms for evaluation and monitoring within the national response mechanisms such as the National Referral Mechanism for trafficked persons NRM; • Coordination between various parts of the NRM, other stakeholders and civil society groups; • Implementation of the NPA: progress and possible areas of concern; • Existing informational needs within the different groups of the stakeholders and identification of the existing sources of data; • Existing gaps in the legal base and law enforcement mechanisms; • Identification and referral of trafficked persons and their access to justice. The research methods used were: • Field work of the invited experts in Georgia. The respective missions each lasted 10 working days; • Document review and analysis. The desk research focused on two main areas: (1) study of available project documents, implemented by various organizations (including Georgian Young Lawyers Association, Article 42 of the Constitution, Antiviolence Network of Georgia, “Tanadgoma”, and others) reports, national action plans, media coverage, project evaluations and (2) study of relevant legislation.2 This research was carried out before, during and after field visits; • Key informant interviews with international organizations, NGOs, and state authorities; • Comparative analysis of interventions to combat human trafficking conducted by various agencies, including civil society-based and government-based; • Stakeholder feedback to this report. Direct access was not sought with persons subjected to exploitation for two main reasons: (1) it would have required an extensive field presence; (2) the organisations that are in contact with persons subjected to exploitation do not grant access to victims and in general do not share their data such as victim profiles, citing the need for confidentiality and prevention of re-traumatisation. 2 The legal expert engaged under this project reviewed and analyzed the following legal documents: Law of Georgia “On Combating Trafficking”, Criminal Code of Georgia, Criminal-Procedural Code of Georgia, Civil Code of Georgia, Civil-Procedural Code of Georgia, Administrative Code of Georgia, “National Action Plan for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings”, “Rules of Procedure of the Interagency Council on Combating Trafficking”, “Rules of Procedure of the State Fund on Trafficking Victims Assistance and Protection”. Analysis was aimed at the outlining of the possible contradictions and gaps in the given documents and bringing in recommendations on amendments and improvements to the mentioned above documents regulating functioning of the NRM and anti-trafficking action in the country. 7 Overview of the Anti-Trafficking Actions in Georgia The first Georgian legislation mentioning trafficking in human beings is the Decree Nr. 64, issued by President E. Shevardnadze in February 2000, by which the “Plan for combating the abuse of women (for the years
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