On the High-Level Event in Vienna on Countering Human Trafficking

19 October 2018

19-10-2018

On 18 October 2018 in Vienna a High-Level Event on Combating Trafficking in Persons was held on the margins of the 9th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime.

The meeting, chaired by the Ambassador, Permanent Representative of the Republic of Belarus to the International Organizations in Vienna Alena Kupchyna was attended by the Deputy Secretary-General of the UN, Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime Yury Fedotov, OSCE Secretary-General Thomas Greminger , Regional Director for Europe and Central Asia of the “UN-Women” Alia El-Yassir, Director of Department of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Grainne O’Hara, Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in Persons, especially in women and children Maria Giammarinaro.

The meeting was a follow-up to the series of events organized after the meeting of the Heads of member organizations of the Inter-Agency Coordinating Group Against Trafficking in Persons (ICAT) held in London in May 2018 in accordance with the Resolution “Improving the coordination of efforts against trafficking in persons” initiated by Belarus and adopted by the UN General Assembly in December 2017.

In their speeches, Yury Fedotov and Thomas Greminger emphasized the leading role of Belarus in increasing the effectiveness of international cooperation in the fight against human trafficking.

The participants of the meeting discussed issues of coordinating anti-trafficking activities within the UN, the role of ICAT in this process, priorities for ICAT in 2019.

During the meeting the participants highlighted the importance of ICAT as the main United Nations coordination body for combating trafficking in human beings, which makes it possible to effectively combine the efforts of 23 its member organizations, each of which has unique experience and competence.

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