The sixth meeting of the Steering Committee of the joint European Union/Council of Europe action “Preventing and combating trafficking in human beings in Serbia” took place on 11 July 2022 in a hybrid form in Belgrade. It gathered representatives of National Anti-trafficking Co-ordination Office, Ministry of the Interior, Ministry of Labour, Employment, Veteran and Social Affairs (Centre for Human Trafficking Victims’ Protection), Ombudsperson’s Office, Ministry of Education, Science and Technological development, Ministry for European Integration, NGOs Astra and Atina, EU Delegation in Belgrade and the Council of Europe.

Nadia Cuk, Deputy Head of the Council of Europe Office in Belgrade, opened the meeting and highlighted the action’s contribution to the fight against human trafficking in Serbia and quoted some examples from the last six months, such as the capacity building of education professionals to recognise potential child trafficking, as well as the mobilisation and training of journalists to adopt victim protective and fact-based reporting on human trafficking.

Mitar Djuraskovic, co-chair of the Steering Committee and National Anti-trafficking Co-ordinator, informed on the recent developments in the country related to human trafficking, including the visit of GRETA to Serbia in May, the results of the implementation of the National Anti-trafficking Strategy so far and their planed external evaluation, the work done by the Ministry of the Interior to reinforce the protection of the victims’ rights. He also shared some plans for the near future.

The members of the Steering Committee discussed the achievements of the action in the areas of preventing and combating trafficking for labour exploitation and trafficking in children. They acknowledged the quality of the capacity building of labour inspectors and police officers on labour trafficking and underlined the need to reach out and train more and more education professionals and journalists.

The Steering Committee was informed of the next, third phase of the programme Horizontal Facility and the fact that involvement of specialised civil society organisations will remain of the utmost importance for the successful implementation of the new action.

The action on “Preventing and combating human trafficking in Serbia” is part of the joint European Union and Council of Europe programme “Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Turkey 2019 – 2022”.