News in English     | 05.03.2021. 20:12 |

USAID allocating two million US dollars to combat human trafficking in BiH

FENA Press release

SARAJEVO, March 5 (FENA) - The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is allocating an additional two million dollars to help the authorities of Bosnia and Herzegovina to combat human trafficking, announced today the director of the USAID Mission to BiH Nancy J. Eslick.

This allocation will be implemented through USAID's new, five-year INSPIRE project to support human rights in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Eslick announced this at a meeting with the state coordinator for the fight against human trafficking in BiH, Samir Rizvo. In addition, the two discussed the government's anti-trafficking efforts and what needs to be done to improve BiH's position on the US State Department's anti-trafficking rankings.

For three years in a row, Bosnia and Herzegovina has been at the level of two watch lists in the US State Department's report on human trafficking. BiH's failure to improve its anti-trafficking position will result in an automatic reduction to level three and will lead to restrictions on US assistance to the BiH authorities.

Eslick believes that the BiH authorities have made significant progress in combating trafficking in human beings by adopting a Strategy to Combat Trafficking in Human Beings and reforming the national referral mechanism.

“I would like to commend the state coordinator for their perseverance in initiating and coordinating the necessary reform activities. But further improvements need to be made through better victim identification, direct victim assistance and more vigorous prosecution of perpetrators. USAID is ready to assist BiH in these efforts,” she said, emphasizing the importance of cooperation and coordination among competent institutions at all levels of government in BiH in the field of combating trafficking in human beings.

State Trafficking Coordinator Samir Rizvo thanked Director Eslick and USAID for their exceptional support to Bosnia and Herzegovina in the fight against trafficking.

“Thanks to your support, both political through the US Embassy and technical through USAID projects, we have made satisfactory progress that will be recognized by the TIP Office in Washington to remove BiH from the watch list. In recent weeks I have had many meetings with the political section of the US Embassy as well as with people from the TIP office in Washington and my impressions are that they are satisfied with what has been done so far, that they have recognized our efforts and the results we have achieved. And the results are obvious and include the reform of the referral mechanism, the coordination mechanism, as well as the results in the investigations and indictments that have been filed and the convictions handed down with very serious punishments for traffickers,” he emphasized.

He also added that regardless of the significant success achieved, BiH institutions cannot afford to be satisfied and relaxed in the coming period because they can very easily find themselves on the observation list of level two again, or worse, they can drop to level three.

The fight against human trafficking remains one of USAID's top priorities in BiH. In the State Department's annual report for 2020 on Trafficking in Persons in BiH, several recommendations were made to improve the government's efforts to combat trafficking in human beings, including changes to the law, training of judges on the gravity of trafficking crimes, increased funding for NGOs assisting victims of trafficking and other improvements.

(FENA) L. N.

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