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In the week that followed St. Patrick's Day the RENATE Country Board Members gathered in Greece for the annual RENATE Country Board Meeting. This was attended by over 20 delegates. Among the countries attending were as follows:
Greece (host)
Spain
France
Ireland Click to read Country Report
UK
Germany
Albania
Poland
Malta
Ukraine Click to read the Country Report
Bosnia
Herzegovina
Croatia
Bulgaria
Portugal
Czech Republic.
Austria
Romania
Hungary
Each country was to present their own report and each Task Group of RENATE was also asked to present on the work and future plans of their Task Group.
On behalf of the Law Task Group I was asked to prepare a report and this can be read HERE
I managed to get a walk in before we began our work and in between sessions and whilst out I took as many photos as I could and these can be seen below, I also stayed on a short while afterwards and once again I took more photos and I include some of them for interest sake more than anything.
What follows on is a short snapshot of what I took away from the Board Meeting and is by no means the full account of all that happened but it will give you an idea of where we are at and what might be the plans of RENATE for the next year and beyond.
The working Board Programme can be seen HERE and below
Working Board Programme March 10 to 15 2025 DRAFT (6).pdfFrom the UK
The news from the UK is not good as can be seen from some of the graphics below. It should also be recorded that there is a real issue of conflation between the issues of Migration and Trafficking that has resulted in a Brexit styled hostile welcome for all who come to the UK irrespective of whether or not a person has been trafficked. More recently the new Borders Bill has ensured that there is no safe means of travel to the UK for those without a visa and this means that those who would like to come to the UK will now have to resort to taking unsafe means of transport exacerbating their already vulnerable status. As a direct result of this bill it is expected that there will be more people trafficked into the UK. When they arrive they can be more easily exploited given the illegal nature of their entry to the UK.
It must also be noted that there are fewer convictions for trafficking despite the police doing as much as they can and also despite the fact that there is an awareness campaign ongoing throughout all the Parishes in the UK that is being sponsored by the Santa Marta Group.
Athens as a city, is a very full city with tourists and it is a safe city. As a country Greece is a very poor country, dependent on the tourist industry. IN Athena there are many who are very poor with many begging on the streets and mostly these are refugees that have come in to the camps. These refugees are not welcomed and are moved on by business owners and police alike. There are many children begging on the streets who should be in school. All over Athens people leave out water and food for cats and the city is extremely cat friendly but this is in direct contrast to the care of the refugee that I have seen on the local streets. The issues that relate to children in Greece and elsewhere came up again and again during our meetings especially in the context of the Ukrainian Children who have been trafficked by Putin into Russia as part of the war mechanisms. More HERE
Athens the City
Click through the Gallery of Photos above.
From the Country Reports - Some of the Headlines:
In the economy of Human Trafficking (HT) human beings are currency - The guilty ones are not just those who sell but also those who buy. We need to consider all that we purchase. (Greece)
In Albania there have been 172 Victims of Trafficking (VoTs) identified and this is a 30% increase on the previous year and most victims are female. There is now the concept of trafficking within Albania and it is now a country of source, transit and destination. There is a noticeable increase in African and Asian victims presenting for support. Different and Equal (RENATE Member) provide for training survivors including men now for the first time. They provide free legal aid. They are to the forefront in the campaign for a new Anti-Trafficking Law in Albania whilst also lobbying for an improvement in the rights for Migrants and Refugees.
In all of the reports that were offered there were some common themes emerging. There is an increase in the numbers of children being trafficked. Only 1% of those who are trafficked will be rescued. There are now more people on the move than ever before. Funding is decreasing and the decrease is directly proportionate to the increase in the numbers of those being trafficked and in the number of perpetrators.
In Bulgaria, there is an under-reporting of the numbers of VoTs and the services to look after them leave a lot to be desired. Those trafficked for sex are looked down upon, there is a stigma to this work even for those who are forced to do this type of 'work'. NGOs are critical to the network of services that look to cater for those who have been identified as having been trafficked and they are filling the gaps left by the state despite their obligation to help. There is a new push to create a much greater degree of awareness among the young people about the issue of Human Trafficking. Unfortunately the state has been found to be complicit in trafficking and since 2021 Bulgaria has had no stable government.
In Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia Herzegovina: There have been very active Talitha Kum Youth days with over 10,000 youth involved and much of the impetus for this has come from awareness raising in schools. Much is done in parishes to raise awareness and also using radio interviews.
In the CZECH Republic there is a real effort to meet women who are victims in order to empower, to educate, to support, counsel and to reconnect them with family. There is a common shame among the VoTs that comes from having been made to do degrading things just to survive and sometimes the only action open to those who help is to be present, to accompany and to listen and this is very often the start of more and can be the beginnings of real recovery. There are nightly visits to nightclubs, street corners and bars to distribute leaflets and calling cards. There is also prison visitation especially to those who have been imprisoned for offenses committed whilst having been trafficked.
In Germany it is more difficult to monitor sex trafficking given that prostitution is legal in Germany but there is a real and obvious focus on the increase in the numbers of children involved in the making of pornography. In Germany there is a move to encourage those with a lived experience of trafficking to become more involved in policy formation and service delivery. Germany also recognises the takes due account of the psychological violence that is part of the trauma of being trafficked. One of the ongoing challenges in Germany is the continuing migration and the far right ideologies that are fostering a seriously dangerous narrative which doesn't bode well for those trafficked or still on the move. Modern communications and ICT are making things really difficult to catch up and keep up with IT savvy perpetrators. There is a campaign within that hopes to include modules of learning for all prospective lawyers as part of their formation. This would also include continuous professional development for those who are already practicing.
Greece is primarily a country of transit and destination and is a key entry point into Europe for those who are trafficked for sex, labour and forced begging. Women and girls are mostly represented in the country's National Referral Mechanism. Many refugees and asylum seekers have become victims of trafficking on their journeys to Greece. Many of the traffickers are Greek. There are even informal brothels in the refugee camps. The House of Damaris ( which we all visited) guides survivors and took 35 referrals in 2024 from Sierra Leone, Cameroon, Somalia and within this group there were 8 children. To date Damaris House has had an 84% success rate in integrating survivors back into mainstream society.
In Hungary Solwodi SOLidarity with WOmen in DIstress is staffed voluntarily but supports victims of trafficking in cooperation with other services offering to help where the state should. Solwodi works to identify perpetrators and report their activities. In Austria / Hungary the Walk Her Home Club mission is to raise awareness of the factors that drive demand for trafficking and support the restoration of victim-survivors of sexual exploitation by partnering with the National Center on Sexual Exploitation and National Trafficking Sheltered Alliance.
In Malta the numbers of identified victims is lower than imagined and in 2024 there were 23 Victims identified, three less than in 2023. The Good Shepherd Sisters are involved in working with and for victims.
In France there was a move to alert all to the issues of Trafficking in the lead up to the Olympics and all related events. Up to 2675 victims have been identified but there is very little dis-aggregation of this data by type of trafficking and by gender / age etc. There are publicly funded awareness campaigns that alert all to the right to have Bank Accounts in your own name and the right to keep and hold your own documents. It is being made clear that whatever you work at that you have rights. If a person is undocumented then it is possible to seek care in a hospital, from the police and to contact the labour inspectorate.
In the Netherlands CoMensha the National Coordination Centre against Human Trafficking and we also identify the nature and extent of human trafficking. We are committed to the interests and rights of (potential) victims of human trafficking in the Netherlands in all it's guises, including sexual exploitation, labour exploitation, criminal exploitation, forced begging and forced organ removal. Victims are entitled to shelter, care, support and guidance. Once a victim has been identified then a case worker is assigned and this case worker stays with this victims throughout the entire time they are being cared for in the system. In 2023 868 Victims were identified, 364 (M) and 493 (F) 816 adults and 52 children. Most the victims were from the Netherlands itself. Together with Sweden they have enacted the first law on HT that has recently been revised.
In Poland the Bakhita Network actions begin with prayer and on the first Friday of the month at 3am they pray the Divine Mercy. Floods in Poland in 2024 awakened in many a new solidarity that also showed a sympathy and empathy for the migrant.
In Romania, there has been an increase of 610 Victims of Human Trafficking since 2022 (35%) and significantly many of those identified have been trapped in labour trafficking from the Ukraine and from the Philippines.
In Spain there are many shelters many of which are run by the Oblates and the White Cross Brothers (who work with men, primarily). Prostitution has shifted to private places and identification is now more difficult. Victims are nearly all undocumented. The Bishops Conference and the public are more interest now than has been the case up to this point. Survivors are part of all services and are consulted on new plans. There is an obvious and serious lack to resources that is necessary to support the growing number of male victims being identified.
The picture in the UK is rather depressing despite the work that has gone into the government white paper in 2024. In 2015 the UK welcomed the Modern Slavery Act and in 2019 Brexit followed. In 2022 the National Borders Act was passed followed by the Illegal Migration act of 2023. A change of government followed in 2024. In 5 years in the UK there has been 5 different prime ministers! In fact there is no safe migration route into the UK and as a result those who travel to the UK are taking more and more unsafe routes, increasing their vulnerabilities to being trafficked. Other countries are now following the same plan to limit the safe ways to enter a country. There are many undocumented in the UK who have been in the country for over 20 years who will now have no possibility of becoming UK citizens given the recent legislative changes. 51% of those trafficked in the UK are UK citizens. 82% of those involved in county lines (drug running) are under 18 years of age. Children are being groomed at the school gate.
To keep in mind!
The RENATE Advocacy Task Group was asked to prepare three new films during the year and they were shown to us at the Board meeting in time for the CSW69 where they were officially launched. I include them below.
I had been sat beside Natalia Holynska, our Ukrainian RENATE Board Representative for the duration of the event and so I asked her to share with me anything that others should know about. I include children's pictures of their interpretation of Human Trafficking. I also include two videos that she shared with me (to share with you). The first is a hard hitting animation and the second uses the pictures that the children prepared to address Human Trafficking.
Caritas Kharkiv animation about trafficking 1.aviHuman trafficking by children's eyes.mp4The Effects of the War on Ukrainian and its citizens.
The Effects of the War on Ukrainian and its citizens.
Click to read the full article.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine totally changed Ukraine’s human rights situation. Millions of our citizens became refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced people. Hundreds of thousands were killed, captured, murdered, tortured, trafficked. Thousands lost everything: their houses, business, properties. Thousands, including hundreds of children, were forcibly deported to Russia and now are in Russian concentration or filter camps. According to the United Nations statistics of September 2022, more than 7 million people have fled Ukraine since Russia invaded. Refugees are crossing into neighboring countries to the west. It is thought that approximately 6.5 million people are displaced inside Ukraine. According to Gradus research 39 % of the Ukrainians fled war and migrated within the country (they became internally displaced people 82%) or abroad (18%). By IOM statistics over 32 million people are estimated to be affected by the full-scale war, having lost income, jobs, homes, loved ones, experiencing separation with their families, uncertainty and having no means to address basic needs. 12 572 children were forcibly deported from Ukraine to Russia, 441 children were killed, 852 children were wounded and now live as invalids. After the outbreak of full scale war in Ukraine the violation of human rights of civilians increased. We face the severe and cruel cases of sexual violation and sexual exploitation of women and girls. It happened at the occupied territories of Ukraine like Kyiv, Chernihiv and other regions. For instance in Irpin not far from Kyiv there was a group of at least 20 women and girls who were raped and sexually exploited by Russian soldiers. After release of this town, these girls and women were rescued, but some of them committed suicide. They could not survive such shame, violence, pain and desperation. Ukrainian police recorded these cases and gathered witnesses’ testimonies. However, they treat these crimes generally as crimes against humanity. Our Caritas staff was able to give assistance to one of the victims. Then all of them were brought to a safe place abroad. They are under protection of state entities and one NGO. In the frames of this project Caritas staff screened and identified 14 victims of human trafficking. 10 of them are victims of sexual exploitation, 3 – labor exploitation, 1 – forced begging. All of them survived in different situations of exploitation. They are very vulnerable and lack different kinds of services. During this project they received such services: social assistance, medical assistance (medical examination, treatment of different diseases, medicines), psychological, food, household and hygienic items, assistance in starting their own business and some equipment for small business.
Caritas employees who visited many released villages in Kyiv region say that there were a lot of cases of sexual violation, sexual exploitation and sex for survival of women and children. Under the threatening of death or tortures, they had to give sex to occupants. For instance, in the village of Andriivka (the most remote village in Kyiv region, with 300 houses), Russians first damaged the half of all the houses, then raped almost all the women from young girls to 70-years old women. They blocked telephone and Internet connection there, took away all the mobiles. They forced the men to take off the clothes, tightened them and forced to stand naked in the cold and frosty weather outside while they raped their wives or sisters. Sometimes it happened at presence of children. Then they organized brothels in 4 houses. They like pimps organized everything and took money from their mates for sex with young Ukrainian women. One of them now is under protection of Caritas. After de occupation, she moved to the capital because she couldn’t live there any more. Her parent migrated to the west of the country with her child. And this young women tries to restart her life in Kyiv. She already had the course of psychological assistance (10 counselling), but she still needs more psychological assistance. We also help her financially for the rent of the apartment. Though she has high pedagogical education she works as a seller at a small store at the underground station. But she’d like to start her small business –coffee making. But it is rather costly equipment. Caritas specialists working for rebuilding her personal relations, especially with her child, for renewal of her internal recourses, for recovering physical and psychological trauma. The work with this beneficiary lasts for almost 10 months. A lot of Ukrainian women being in a vulnerable state go abroad, to the foreign countries. Some recruiters or traffickers offer them free transportation and/or accommodation later begin exploiting them, like domestic servitude or sexually. Caritas Ukraine know such cases and provides tailor made assistance to the victims of trafficking if they are back in Ukraine and we may reachthem. Here is the story of one girl who became the victim of human trafficking for sexual exploitation.
You can check out Natalia's Country Report HERE and below.
This booklet (NEW PUBCLICATION) entitled 'Lives Torn Apart by War' has been prepared by CARITAS Ukraine (similar to Trocaire / CAFOD). The first half of the Booklet is in Ukrainian and the second half is a translation into English of the first half. The booklet was forwarded to us by Natalia Holynska our Ukrainain RENATE Board Representative. The booklet can be shared with others and can be read below or HERE. It is worth taking into account given the film that has been shown above.
Lives torn apart by war.pdf
Co-Presidents Report (headlines) Sr. Marie Power and Ivonne van de Kar
In the Annual Report we can see that there is a CORE Group of 7 members who have met in person in Albania as well as regularly on Zoom.
There are 10 Task Groups in RENATE.
Following on from the RENATE Assembly in Fatima the RENATE Mandate stands firmly on three pillars:
RENATE's Identity as a Faith Based NGO is affirmed.
A significant role of RENATE is Education and Capacity Building.
And thirdly NETWORKING.
The Logo has been updated
There is a new website in the making. (details to follow).
The colours in use by RENATE are those that identify with the suffragette movement in times past. ( I didn't know this!).
Every two years there is a Monitoring and Evaluation Report (More Below) on the work of RENATE published as part of the funding requirements. There is a new report this year.
RENATE has hosted training on the Effect of War on Human Trafficking. There has also been training on Trauma and Mental Health for Victims of Trafficking.
There have been online prayer services and in-person pilgrimages.
There has been the recent publication of research and the shelters booklet and the production of new advocacy films.
Challenges
There was news of funding cuts by up to 50% on previous funding and this will limit the work of RENATE going forward for example in the area of future research.
There is a concern that there will be more cuts in time as existing funders will now concentrate their funding on countries (and continents) of origin: Africa and Asia.
Increase in Cyber Crime.
Increase in the use of children in the production of pornography.
Increase in the incidence of County Lines (UK & Ireland) children trafficked into drug distribution.
Shelters without funds.
Lack of Legal Aid and related supports.
A significant increase in the movement of people.
Only 1% of trafficked are rescued.
Advocacy for migrants is waning.
The Tate Brothers and their story is drawing a lot of unwanted attention.
More the Ukrainian Children's Drawings.
RENATE's Monitoring and Evaluation as conducted by Anne Kelleher, Communications RENATE.
Headlines:
This is a report for all.
We need this report to build an overall picture of the work of RENATE.
To help us to apply for new funds.
It is an evidenced based back-up of the ongoing work of RENATE.
An interrogation of the data is substantiated by the University of Bologne.
The first such report was published in 2020 and is due every 2 years.
12 Countries responded.
There are FIVE Monitoring Framework Indicators:
Direct Action and Prevention
Capacity Building
Advocacy & Stakeholder Engagement.
Research and Development.
Additionality
War in Ukraine
Training.
RENATE and those affiliated have noticed an increase in the number of men being cared for and that in this response to looking after the needs of vulnerable men is an indication of the flexibility of RENATE Members.
There are many barriers and challenges that include an increase in the workload, reduction in funding and research, War, AI ad Climate Change. Do we need a revision of the Palermo Protocol that is now 25 years old? Has this definition stood the test of time?
Pretty much the full Group.
The Sisters and Attendees.
Click through the Gallery of Photos above.
This is the Advocacy Task Group Film based on the UK and Ireland.
Mass each evening at the end of the day.
Task Groups
Against the Shadow a film from Albania.
RENATE Shelters and Safe House - NEW PUBLICATION can be read below or HERE
Launch - RENATE Shelters and Safe Houses Booklet .pdfDamaris House Visit
Click through the Gallery of Photos above.
When people arrive at Damaris House they are often broken but when they leave they are whole again and pictures below directly refer to this idea of recovery and empowerment.
Smuggling Versus Trafficking
A Day Out towards the end of the work?
Click through the Gallery of Photos above.
From around and about!
The Local Park
Click through the Gallery of Photos above.
Ukraine
Click through the Gallery of Photos above.
Odds and Ends
Click through the Gallery of Photos above.
Taking a stand against GBV in Athens in front of the Parliament.
I stayed on for a few days afterwards and witnessed this event that was very well attended to highlight the issues of GBV and specifically women being murdered by partners.
Click through the Gallery of Photos above.
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