OSCE Centre supports 'train the trainers' course on combating and preventing human trafficking in Turkmenistan

ASHGABAT, 18 September 2009 - Twenty-five volunteers and staff of the National Red Crescent Society of Turkmenistan from around the country completed an OSCE Centre-supported "train the trainers" course in Ashgabat today on human trafficking.

Selected volunteers trained in the two-day course will lead 10 awareness-raising sessions on trafficking in human beings and safe migration that the Society will organize. More than 200 people, including young people from low-income families, are expected to benefit from these sessions that will be organized with the OSCE Centre's support in the five regions of Turkmenistan.

"The OSCE Centre is supporting a number of initiatives aimed at raising awareness among state institutions and civil society about the importance of preventing and addressing human trafficking. This training course will expand opportunities to spread the word about trafficking in human beings and ways to prevent it," said Begoña Piñeiro Costas, the Centre's Human Dimension Officer.

As part of the OSCE Centre-supported project, the National Red Crescent Society also organized a meeting gathering 10 representatives from the Interior Ministry, the General Prosecutors' Office and the State Border Service to discuss trafficking in human beings. It also drafted a booklet on 'Trafficking in human beings - You should know about it!', 2,000 copies of which will be disseminated throughout Turkmenistan.