BOSNIA GLOBAL GRANT

UPDATES GRANT #2 -beginning 2018 



February 20, 2018

Dear Felicia,

All project activities are implemented as originally planned. We have an excellent cooperation with all school prinicipals and councilors involved in the project due to relevance of the activities.

Earlier this month police conducted a big raid at a night club in Sarajevo where they found dozens of very young girls, even some minors, who were recruited to provide sexual services.

http://avaz.ba/vijesti/crna-hronika/349921/detalji-iz-bordela-%E2%80%9Corlando%E2%80%9D-bludnicenje-uglednika-uz-afrodizijake-i-prostitutke

We discussed the issue of human trafficking at our schools and realized that underage girls have become very vulnerable to HT. During the street campaigns we learned horrible things about sexual exploitation of not only girls and young men but also of children (even boys) by foreign tourists and we will discuss it during the next meeting of the anti-trafficking referral group and the regional monitoring team. We will also report all our findings to the Ministry of Security and the Cantonal Ministry of Education Sarajevo.

During the lectures held so far, we learned that many girls as young as 12 have already become victims of abuse through internet and we are asked by many schools to hold awareness raising lectures so we will held more lectures than originally planned, as they are afraid that eventually girls may start dropping out from school due to mocking or condemnation.

Tomorrow we will have 2 lectures in Sarajevo and we will try to meet with the State Coordinator for anti-trafficking activities to brief him about our findings in Sarajevo Canton.

Sarajevo has become a real jungle and this has been the second large case of recruiting girls and minors in provision of sexual services in the past 2 years (http://bnn.ba/vijesti/holiday-inn-potvrdena-optuznica-protiv-12-osoba) and our project has been welcomed by many schools.

Even though we planned to have 80 mentees and 20 mentors, we have 32 mentors – students from the Sarajevo University and 115 girls from 8 elementary schools, the Sarajevo orphanage and the Family Center of the SOS Kinderdorf who provides assistance to most vulnerable categories.

Since those girls are very vulnerable to all forms of abuse and we are now trying to empower them through our project with a great assistance of school councilors both the school principals and councilors allowed students to take some photo of the mentoring events but they kindly asked not to publish those photos on internet in order not to victimize the girls, as it may get a contra effect.

Photos from the lectures held at schools can be published on internet (especially those taken from the back of classrooms where faces of children are not visible) but the photos from mentoring events should be shared only internally. As for photos from the literacy course, nobody asked us not to publish them, but perhaps for the sake of child protection those photos should not be published, too. Authorities in Sarajevo are very strict when it comes to taking photos of children, I wish they were as strict when it comes to actual protection of minors.

The literacy course is ongoing, girls are really sweet and motivated and we are currently planing more lectures at schools. 

Best regards,

Ada  

Spring 2017:

 

Update May 2017 from Ada Pehlic, VP of Novi Put, the NGO contracted by Mostar Rotary to implement both grants:

"I send you the warmest greetings from Mostar and my sincere gratitude for taking interest in the work of „Novi put“ and would like to inform you that my colleague Edisa and I will take part at the 1. International Conference on Education that will be held on May 12 and 13 in Mostar where we will have a presentation on Importance of education of girls from socially vulnerable families based on our experience from the 1st Rotary funded grant.

"We are looking forward to implementing another Rotary funded grant here in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and this project will be very important not only for promotion of education of rural and Roma girls in Bosnia, but also for prevention of human trafficking which is a rapidly growing problem affecting children and teenagers. In 2016 Spanish police arrested a group of traffickers from Bosnia and Herzegovina who were putting numerous Roma families in debt bondage and taking unaccompanied Roma children across Europe where they were forced to beg, pickpocket, commit ATM thefts and provide sexual services. The newest form of human trafficking we have been facing is exploitation of children for production and selling of pornographic materials, also number of cases of sexual exploitation of girls is on raise. However, there is no systematic approach to the issue and in the 2016 annual report of the (federal)Ministry of Security of Bosnia and Herzegovina „Novi put“ was mentioned as the only organization working on prevention of human trafficking at the grass root level and this new project will enable us to expand our activities and raise awareness among vulnerable categories in Sarajevo Canton." Novi Put has also been designated by the Federal Ministry of Security as a human trafficking partner.