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On the initiative of President Osmani Women, Peace and Security Forum will be held in Prishtina

On the initiative of the President of the Republic of Kosovo Vjosa Osmani, Women Peace and Security International Forum will be held in Pristina on October 22nd and 23rd, the very first organization of its kind in the history of Kosovo. The forum is organized in cooperation with the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Mrs. Donika Gërvalla Schwarz and is supported by local and international partners.

President Osmani's speech at the launch of the campaign against Human Trafficking

Dear Prime Minister Kurti! Dear Minister Nagavci! Dear Deputy Minister of the Interior Gashani! Representatives of security and justice institutions! Representatives of embassies and international organizations! Ladies and gentlemen!   I thank you for organizing this conference and for the opportunity that today, in the spirit of the European Day against human trafficking, we can together discuss an extremely dangerous phenomenon for every society, therefore for our society as well. At a time when such dangerous phenomena for society have become global, our mobilization should also be a joint one. For this reason, marking this day in our country shows not only the sensitivity and care that the country's institutions show against such phenomena but also our willingness to cooperate and coordinate our actions with important partners in combating such phenomena. The fact that today we are launching the campaign against human trafficking testifies to the readiness of our institutions to face this dangerous phenomenon, but also to be cooperative with all countries that are facing such situations, and that by cooperating and coordinating with other democratic countries we may achieve our goals. I take the opportunity to thank the Ministry of Internal Affairs and in particular the national coordinator on human trafficking, Mr. Gashani, for his dedication and determination to coordinate efforts in combating this phenomenon. Trafficking in human beings is not only a serious crime and a serious violation of human dignity and rights but is also a constant and deeply disturbing challenge to our societies. The operating space for traffickers has increased in 2022, taking into account the global crisis caused as a result of Russia's illegal and unprovoked war on Ukraine, which has seriously undermined the global order and has influenced the world in general to turn into a more insecure environment. Consequently, it has expanded the terrain for human traffickers many times over. The refugee crisis, caused as a result of the war followed by the energy crisis, the changed economic parameters but also fragile security, destabilizing trends and social instability, as well as the challenges of the rule of law all over the world have enabled an increasingly favourable space for human trafficking. Such fragile situations encourage criminal networks to try to exploit every loophole to expand their criminal activity. Illegal sex trafficking, especially of women and children in and around Ukraine has increased significantly. Millions of women and children are leaving their homes in search of safety, and some of them end up moving from the tragedy of war to the tragedy of trafficking. This is the pain that our civilization must face and to which it must give the right answer. The second issue which I want to emphasize is the often wrong perception of the way traffickers operate. For a large part of society, human trafficking seems like a distant phenomenon, which affects only certain groups of society and implies isolated actions. In fact, this is a wrong perception.  Because traffickers not only affect certain categories of society, but they also take advantage of every opportunity and violate everyone's freedom. Trafficking knows no race, no gender, and no age. The third issue I want to highlight is the interrelationship of human trafficking with many sectors of society. As it is well known, countless businesses closely connected to traffickers' networks, often aim to take advantage of the lack of economic perspective and social inequality faced by victims of trafficking. They use the misfortune of some categories of society, first of all the impoverished categories to get rich illegally. The state must find out the activity of each economic entity and create mechanisms that sanction those businesses that misuse their role in society to the detriment of those who may have remained hostage to poverty. The forms of trafficking are different, from sexual exploitation including prostitution, slavery, forced labour, forced deprivation of liberty and related practices and hence our response must be one and firm. This, of course, is not always easy. Trafficking can often be camouflaged with other criminal activities. Quite often, the victims are exploited in different ways and within other illegal activities, but these cases of human trafficking are not investigated and registered as such. The lack of uniform systems for identifying and combating human traffickers, but also the inconsistency in identifying cases of trafficking in some countries of the region and institutional limitations, but also the approach of countries to leave the fight against this phenomenon in the hands of the police only excluding other institutions, especially excluding labor inspectors cases of identification processes, have in some countries of the region negatively affected the successful identification of trafficking cases. However, Kosovo is already setting a good example of cooperation between the Police and the Labor Inspectorate, so that victims of trafficking are identified and offered legal support.   Dear participants! Trafficking has today reached alarming proportions. About 27 million people – 27 million women, men and children – are trafficked every year around the world. Almost three-quarters of all victims within the EU are women and underage girls, who are mainly trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation, that is, rape. They continue to be the greatest victims of traffickers. Children also constitute an extremely worrying number of victims within the EU, the majority of whom are also little girls, who are trafficked for sexual exploitation. This is an extremely serious concern for many countries. In Kosovo, 86% of trafficking victims are women and girls, while more than 60% of them are under the age of 18. Another disturbing dimension, which I want to underline is that, as in our entire region, even in Kosovo statistics continue to remain incomplete. But the few statistics that do exist speak with one voice: the economic empowerment of women and girls is the main prerequisite for combating human trafficking. The other prerequisite, of course, is the rule of law for which there has never been more political will and concrete actions than there is now. Therefore, we must continue to act. Because

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