The Chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, Rights of Children, Youth, Immigration, Refugees, Asylum and Ethics, Aleksandra Pandurević spoke with OSCE Special Representative for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings

 
During today’s meeting of the Chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, Rights of Children, Youth, Immigration, Refugees, Asylum and Ethics, Aleksandra Pandurević spoke with the OSCE Special Representative and the co-ordinator for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings Maria Grazia Giammarinaro. Pandurević said, “In our country there are many problems, but on the other hand, there are fields such as fighting human trafficking, where important progress has been made in the last ten years. In the period from 1998 to 2000 the situation was alarming. Human trafficking and prostitution were flourishing, which today is not the case.”
Pandurević commended the fact that Bosnia and Herzegovina is in the first group out of 31 countries on the Watch List of the State Department to successfully fight human trafficking. “However, our task is to improve legislation; or more precisely to make the sanctions more rigid which are currently humiliating for the victims of human trafficking,” said Aleksandra Pandurević.

During the meeting, Pandurević emphasized that children that are forced to beg are not completely identified, but the statistics show that in over 95% of cases, parents force the children to beg. She added, “Today, the big challenge is trafficking in human beings with the aim of the labour exploitation, as well as trafficking in children”. She concluded that all institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina successfully deal with this problem, but also that there is a need to improve the legislation and harmonize it with EU directives, as well as to engage more in victim and witness protection.
Maria Grazia Giammarinaro emphasized that, after her visit to our country, a report with recommendations will be made, and she added that improvements in Combating Trafficking in Human Beings has been made, but that it is a problem which always takes new forms and shapes. “Accordingly, it is important that all of us, together with the Joint Committee on Human Rights, make additional efforts in order for national legislation to be harmonized with the European standards,” said Giammarinaro. (end)