This year the coalition platform that unites organizations such as "SOS Children’s Villages Latvia", department of "Social Service Agency" – family crisis centre "Mīlgrāvis", "Latvian Samaritan association" crisis centre for children and women "Māras centrs", "Talsi district crisis centre", "Baltic Regional Fund", “Shelter “Safe House”” was joined by 2 organizations that believe that cooperation is critical in solving these issues.
Asked about the motivation to join the coalition Arturs Vaisla (Arturs Vaišļa), Board Member of For Human Trafficking Free Vidzeme pointed out the need to work more actively on reducing human trafficking and join efforts in regions.
Whereas Laima Ozola, Board Member of the National Council of Irish Latvians told at a specially organized video conference that she believes organizations should cooperate in preventive work by disseminating informative materials and organizing joint campaigns in Ireland. “The great number of sham marriages concluded in Ireland among third-country nationals and Latvian nationals is alarming. Therefore, it is important to cooperate and inform people so they could avoid human trafficking and its immense harm.”
In the first 11 months of 2014 the society supplied social rehabilitation services to 32 people: 4 men and 28 women of whom 12 were included in the programme in 2013 and 20 – in 2014. 20 people were victims of sham marriages, 9 were subject to forced labour, and 1 – sexual abuse.
Sandra Zalcmane, Head of “Society “Safe House”” shared her observations that this year men subject to forced labour abroad mostly exploited in construction, agriculture and through other hard work began seeking help from the society. She pointed out that compared to last year the portrait of a person engaged in a sham marriage is different this year: “Last year it was a woman aged 25 or less from a small town with high school education, having one or two children born out of wedlock – a single mother whereas now the victim is about 28 year old woman and the victim’s age tends to increase.”
Between January and November 2014 representatives of society have received 191 calls to the human trafficking hotline 28612120.
According to Gita Miruskina (Gita Miruškina) the majority of callers – 121 wanted to get particular information often unrelated to human trafficking. For instance, some callers wanted to know about safe job seeking, labour dispute resolution, however, many questions were also asked about sham marriages and their consequences. Many calls were from people worried about their family members working abroad who they hadn’t heard from for a while.
Representatives of the society pointed out that active work is being done on raising awareness of the hotline. In the course of this year “Shelter “Safe House”” has organized training for hotline experts and cooperated with socially responsible organization www.irdarbs.lv in developing visual material: informative banners and posters placed at 28 NVA offices and sent out to over 600 schools in Latvia, 46 youth and children’s education centres.
People present at the meeting were introduced to the experience of society’s foreign partners in raising awareness of the hotline. Activities by organizations such as NL Confidential (the Netherlands), Living for Tomorrow (Estonia), La Strada Foundation against Trafficking in Persons and Slavery were given as examples of good practice.
The project "Society’s “Shelter “Safe House”” Action Support Programme to Reduce Human Trafficking in Latvia" is financed by Iceland, Lichtenstein and Norway. The programme NGO Fund ir financed by the EEA Financial Mechanism and Latvian government. Find out more about the EEA Financial Mechanism programme NGO Fund here. Website of the Society Integration Foundation: http://www.sif.lv Website of the EEA Financial Mechanism in Latvia: http://www.eeagrants.lv Official website of the EEA Financial Mechanism: http://www.eeagrants.org. Responsibility for the content of this publication lies with the society “Shelter “Safe House””.
