On April 10 and 11 representatives of BFPA and the National Network of Health Mediators (Dr. Radosveta Stamenkova, ED of BFPA and Anife Hasan, Vice-president of the Network) were invited by the Helsinki office of IOM to participate in a meeting in Stockholm with the Swedish National Task Force against Prostitution and Trafficking . Representatives of different Swedish state and municipality structures, directly involved in the problems and working on the issues took part in the meeting, such as the Ministry of Justice, prosecution, police, social services, migration offices and the local task forces from Stockholm, Malmo and Gothenburg.
In the last years then umber of victims of trafficking form Bulgaria both for sexual and
labor exploitation increased seriously. Major part of the trafficked people identified by the institutions in question is form the Roma community.
Our representatives had long and at the same time very energetic performance – they catch the attention of the auditorium during almost the entire day of the meeting. Rada and Anife shared good practice examples and successful approaches in working with vulnerable communities and marginalized families and did their best in order the Nordic colleagues to understand better the specific characteristic of the work in multiethnic environment. It is a challenge to work in such dynamic environment. We will not exaggerate if we say that we changed visions and provided valuable information that cannot be found in scientific publications and guidelines. The auditorium really got concrete practical advices on real case studies and strategic approaches.
The feedback of organizers was very positive and participants consider the meeting as a starting point for further collaboration. The idea is next meeting to be in Bulgaria – we expect our new friends in Bulgaria in early autumn!
