Despair as a compass

Photograph: Predrag Mitic

"We know from the experience of our organization that smuggling often ends up with violence, extortion, and often debt bondage and exploitation, and in there we also see a link with human trafficking. Despite the fact that the victim gave consent to the smuggler to take her across the border, she hasn’t consented to violence and exploitation This is where we start thinking about when the volunteering in entire process stops”.

Author: Momir Turudic

Photo from the conference: Risks of trafficking in human beings for the purpose of sexual and other exploitation of children and young refugees and migrants in Serbia, NGO Atina and Save the Children, May 2019

Published on November 18^th 2019   

Training place: Bihac, Bosnia and Hercegovina    

Project title: Children are not for sale

Project is carried out by NGO Atina, and Center for Youth Integration, with the support of Save the Children and Swedish Radio Aid

Author/source: SEEbiz / Deutsche Welle 
Published on: 28.01.2017. - 22:28:52 

BELGRADE - Refugees have heard about the park across the Belgrade bus station while still in Istanbul or Sofia – that is where the smugglers are always present. The price of their services grows with despair. Many people who are stranded in Serbia see them as the only lifeline.

Despite the closure and militarization of many of Europe’s borders, hundreds of refugees continue to enter using transnational smuggling networks in the Balkans. Reporter Andrew Connelly has more from the Serbian capital Belgrade.

In a muddy stretch of land in the Serbian capital, colloquially termed Afghan Park, smugglers and potential clients rub shoulders and illicit journeys to northern Europe are bought and sold. The lucrative black market transactions occur, appropriately, in the shadow of Belgrade University’s economics department.

Several thousand refugees in Serbia, after the closure of the West Balkan route they were passing through, is waiting for Europe to open the borders, or to try and reach the desired country with smugglers, risking their own lives. Refugees, whose number in Europe has not been this high since the Second World War, are finding ways to avoid border crossings because they cannot pass them legally. Smugglers are earning money on other people’s misfortune, and organized crime has been flourishing.

Regional training on migration was held in Zagreb, organized by ICITAP (International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program of the Department of Justice USA) and the Police Academy in Zagreb, and it gathered representatives of eight countries in the region who, on this occasion, had the opportunity to exchange experiences, examples of good practice, as well as policies and strategies their countries implemented during the refugee crisis.