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COATNET members and religious sisters of Africa attended the workshop "Lobbying and networking as a means to fight human trafficking",
organized by Secours Catholique during the World Social Forum in Nairobi on 22 January.
Caritas Europa's Secretary General Marius Wanders was present at the event, along with COATNET's coordinator Natalia Kovaliv.
Coming from different regions of the world, six COATNET participants described for the audience their regions/countries' current
situation with regard to trafficking of human beings.(You may download all speeches and presentations on the bottom of this page.)
From the Middle East, Najla Chahda, Head of the Migrants Centre of Caritas Lebanon, focused on the issue of trafficking for
forced labour purposes, mainly domestic workers from Phillipines, Sri Lanka and other Asian countries. She described the slave-like
conditions under which these people are forced to work.
Inputs from Asia came through the presentation of Fr. George Sigamoney from SETIK/Caritas Sri Lanka, who focused specifically
on trafficking and enslaving of children for forced labour, often following the sale of these children to traffickers by their
own parents who are unaware of the hardships and misery that they are exposing their own children too.
John Sackey, Caritas Ghana, made a presentation about the children victims of trafficking within and between West African
countries.
The European context was described by Ivonne van de Kar, SRTV- the Dutch Foundation of Religious against trafficking in women;
and Nickolay Iltchev, CRS Europe and Middle East. They told the audience about the situation of young women being trafficked
for the purpose of sexual exploitation.
Finally, Dalila Figueiredo, from the NGO ASBRAD in Brasil - a partner of Caritas Europa member organisation Cordaid - described
the plight of Brasilian young people and children trafficked internationally for mostly forced labour and sexual exploitation,
with the airport Garulhas of Sao Paolo being a major entry and exit point.
This round of presentations of regional realities was concluded with a presentation by COATNET Coordinator Natalia Kovaliv,
Caritas Ukraine and Caritas Europa, on the advocacy work of the COATNET network.
Gathered around the dehumanising crime of trafficking in human beings, participants agreed in very interesting outcomes. Please
chose the page Conclusions of World Social Forum 2007.
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