On 4 November, Ambassador Sergey Kapinos, Head of the OSCE Office in Yerevan, and Arsen Hambardzumyan, Minister of Labour and Social Issues in Armenia, signed an agreement (in Armenian: HTML, 1 page) to establish the Anti-Trafficking Support and Resource Unit. The unit will facilitate coordination between the Armenian government and NGOs to foster an effective strategy to protect trafficking victims. It will also collect and manage national trafficking data. Several groups will oversee the unit, including the two signatory parties, the Working Group of Armenia’s Commission on Trafficking Issues, and two NGOs. The French, Swedish and German governments fund OSCE-Yerevan. This agreement comes seven years after OSCE-Yerevan began working with the Armenian government to combat trafficking, and less than a year after Armenia ratified the Council of Europe’s Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings. OSCE-Yerevan’s prior anti-trafficking work in the area included strengthening criminal laws and training other organizations interested in combating trafficking.
Compiled from: Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), Press release: OSCE Office Helps Establish Anti-trafficking Support and Resource Unit in Armenia (4 November 2008).