NGO ASTRA – Anti Trafficking Action from Belgrade, in cooperation with the experts from the Dutch Criminal Police and with support of the Royal Netherlands Embassy to Serbia, has carried out a training for police officers aimed at improving their skills for communicating with trafficking victims in order to obtain their valid and quality statement necessary for further investigation but avoiding their secondary victimization. The Ministry of the Interior of Serbia gave significant support to the implementation of this training.
The training sought to help border police officers who work in the field. i.e. at border check-points, acquire and/or improve their knowledge and skills so that they could recognize possible victim in a short period of time they have at disposal and adequately respond in order to facilitate victim’s later identification.
The training was delivered by Henk Werson, chief police inspector of the Dutch national police for combating human trafficking, and his team. They insisted on practical exercises of interviewing techniques with special emphasis on communicating and collecting information in case of language barrier.
The training was held on October 15-18, 2012 in Belgrade, bringing together 22 border police officers who work at the border check points in all seven Border Police Regional Center.
This training has been implemented as part of ASTRA’s effort to enhance the capacities of local anti-trafficking actors of various profiles though peer learning and exchange of experiences with their peers from foreign countries.