ICMPD Director General Susanne Raab welcomed Kari Johnstone, Special Representative for Combatting Human Trafficking for the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and Deputy Co-ordinator Jean-Benoit Manhes.
At their meeting in Vienna on 18 March 2026, Ms Raab and Ms Johnstone discussed opportunities for cooperation in anti-trafficking programmes in regions around Europe, including Central Asia; and continued collaboration in supporting Ukraine.
“We are very pleased to continue the dialogue with such important partners as the OSCE. Particularly in the polarised, complex, and fast-changing geopolitical contexts we are facing globally, this is a very opportune moment strengthen our wide-ranging partnership that spans multiple regions, to attain our common goals for human safety, lasting peace, and security for us in and around Europe,” Ms Raab said.
Both ICMPD and OSCE have collaborated in the support for Ukraine; and have a longstanding cooperation for over two decades, particularly in the field of combating human trafficking, and law enforcement. In South-East Europe, ICMPD has cooperated closely with OSCE’s missions in the Western Balkans and in in supporting countries to develop their National and Transnational Referral Mechanisms for trafficked persons, and capacity building work.
In Central Asia, ICMPD’s Border Management Programme (BOMCA) cooperates with OSCE field offices, including in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, in the areas of prevention of trafficking, law enforcement, and capacity development. In cooperation with OSCE field representations, ICMPD has invested anti-trafficking police expertise and improving anti-trafficking prevention in Kazakhstan; and collaborated on simulation-based trainings in Kyrgyzstan.
Furthermore, ICMPD is an active member of the OSCE-led Alliance Against Trafficking in Persons, and regularly participates in its high-level conferences and Expert Co-ordination Team meetings. ICMPD also works with OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), in the areas of illegal migration, return monitoring, or Ukraine. Meanwhile, the OSCE is an active participant of the Budapest Process, the world’s longest running migration dialogue which ICMPD hosts as Secretariat.
More recently, ICMPD has supported OSCE’s anti-trafficking trainings, running since 2017; and the Symposium on Combating Trafficking in Human Beings in the Mediterranean Region which focused on the current and emerging challenges, and the measures undertaken by Italy, Malta, Spain, Tunisia, Egypt, and Algeria to combat human trafficking.
Reaffirming the organisation’s readiness to continue contributing expertise on emerging trafficking patterns, including technology-enabled exploitation, Ms Raab emphasised “ICMPD’s strength in the nexus of policy, research, field work and project development adds value as an implementing organisation capable of translating political commitments into concrete programmes, particularly in our work along migration routes.
“We look forward to strengthening our collaboration with Ms Johnstone’s office, and more broadly on the very pertinent work of the OSCE; especially through its political mandate and its normative frameworks, and both our strong field presence, operational expertise, and intersection of migration governance and security policy,” Ms Raab concluded.
