Meeting on Access to Justice and Effective Remedies for Victims of Trafficking: Establishing a Network of Lawyers

This Strategy Meeting is the first activity aimed at facilitating the establishment of an OSCE-wide network of legal practitioners to improve access to justice and effective remedies, including compensation, for victims of trafficking. The meeting will bring together more than 40 lawyers, representatives of inter-governmental organizations and civil society, involved in the provision of free legal advice and assistance to vulnerable individuals in more than 20 OSCE participating States. It will provide an opportunity to take stock of existing networks and legal assistance initiatives from across the OSCE region. The meeting aims to initiate new forms of strategic co-operation amongst individual lawyers and legal professionals from non-governmental organizations, legal clinics, pro bono clearinghouses and law firms.

The Strategy Meeting follows on from an ODIHR workshop on access to justice for trafficked persons held in March 2011 in Istanbul. Since publishing the first study on Compensation for Trafficked and Exploited Persons in the OSCE Region in 2008, ODIHR has helped focus international attention to the issue of access to justice and compensation for trafficked persons. One of the findings of the Istanbul workshop was the need to enhance legal assistance to trafficked persons, including through increased cross-border networking and exchange.