On 16 September 2021, the ICMPD Anti-Trafficking Programme launched the regional project “Developing Approaches for Enhancing the Functionality of the National Referral Mechanisms (NRMs) in the MARRI Participants”. The project implementation plan and timeline were presented and discussed during the kick-off online meeting together with the implementation partners from Migration, Asylum, Refugees Regional Initiative (MARRI) and German Corporation for International Cooperation (GIZ), who is the project donor.
The overall objective of the project is to develop and disseminate specific approaches for enhancing the functionality of the NRMs for trafficked persons in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia, as well as to pave the ground for practical implementation of the approaches on regional level. Experts from the ICMPD Anti-Trafficking Programme, in coordination with the anti-trafficking professionals in the region, will develop approaches that will include practical guidance on:
a) inclusion/participation of the trafficking survivors as advisors in the anti-trafficking strategic and operational response in the MARRI participants;
b) improving the communication and coordination channels among the relevant NRM actors on national and international level, as well as
c) re-affirmation of the civil society participation within the NRMs in the MARRI region, based on their active role within these mechanisms.
The approaches will compile relevant information on the international standards and practices and will provide the anti-trafficking practitioners in the region with streamlined methods, instructions, tools and transferable practices that will be further elaborated during webinars and regional workshop.
The project, which should conclude in July 2022, is being implemented in the frame of the German Corporation for International Cooperation (GIZ) funded project “Preventing and Combatting Trafficking in Human Beings in the Western Balkans”.