On Wednesday and Thursday, October 5 and 6, a Regional Expert Group Meeting was held in Chisinau (Moldova) dedicated to Countering Labour Exploitation in Trafficking in Persons, Focusing on Due Diligence in Supply Chains in South Eastern Europe. UNODC organised this hybrid event in cooperation with the State Office of the Republic of Moldova and the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs of France.
At the event, among other things, it was discussed about: the tasks and work of the expert group; the international legal framework governing this area; instruments and methods of cross-border cooperation in cases of human trafficking for the purpose of labor exploitation; increased supervision and responsibility in the supply chain; the role, capacities and experiences of the private sector in solving the problem of human trafficking; victim-centred investigative procedure and criminal prosecution; functioning of NRM in different countries of the region, etc.
The director of ASTRA, Marija Anđelković, also participated in the panel dedicated to Civil society experiences concerning trafficking in persons for the purposes of labour exploitation including through due diligence in supply chains at the national and international level, and on that occasion, she spoke about our examples from practice with particular reference on the case of mass labor exploitation of workers from Vietnam engaged in the construction of the Linglong tire factory. The presentation attracted a lot of attention, mainly because it is based on ASTRA’s detailed report, which presents considerable evidence and indicators that this is the potentially biggest case of labor exploitation in this area.