Aims & Philosophy
The aim of La Strada International is to influence the authorities, the media and public opinion to address trafficking as a severe human rights violation. On a practical level, La Strada develops and offers protection and prevention activities for trafficked persons, people vulnerable to trafficking and other affected groups.
- To inform persons about the risks of trafficking and how to protect themselves
- To provide short- and long-term assistance to people who have been trafficked and to defend and advocate their rights
- To provide safe return and re-integration programmes for trafficked persons
- To raise awareness of trafficking as a violation of human rights
- To advocate for national and international level actions to combat trafficking in human beings, based on the human rights approach towards trafficking
- To address the root causes of trafficking
- To train professionals such as police, service providers or border officials on trafficking issues
- To build up strong and independent NGOs in Central and Eastern Europe.
Capacity building constitutes a central element of the La Strada programme and is crucial to tackle a controversial and sensitive issue such as trafficking in persons. Because of their independent status, organisations at the grassroots level can win the confidence of women who consider migration to the West and provide them with reliable information on the risks involved and how to protect themselves against those risks.
Trafficking reflects the poor social and legal position of women in many countries. It encourages deceit, abuse, violence, bonded labour, blackmail and deprivation of human rights. Trafficking currently flourishes in sex work, the agricultural, building and garment industries as well as the domestic labour and commercial marriage market.
The La Strada programme is based on a human rights approach. Migrant workers, domestic workers and sex workers must have their rights protected. States are accountable for violations of human rights, including forced labour and practices akin to slavery. Trafficking in persons is a complex problem, strategic responses are therefore necessarily multi-faceted. The different fields and interests include: migration, organised crime, sex work, human rights, violence against women, the feminisation of poverty, unequal economic relationships, etc. Any analysis and matching solution in relation to these issues should be carefully questioned in terms of its effects for the groups concerned. A human rights-based approach opposes anti-trafficking measures which adversely affect or infringe upon the human rights of trafficked persons or other affected groups. This approach requires that human rights are at the core of any anti-trafficking strategy. It integrates the norms, standards and principles of the international human rights system into legislation, policies, programmes and processes.
The key priority of La Strada is to focus on the importance of improving the economic and social position of people in the CEE countries - in particular those of women - and to promote their universal rights, including the right to choose to emigrate and to work abroad with just compensation and under proper conditions and to protect them from violence and abuse. La Strada recognises trafficked persons as active actors in changing their own situation, rather than passive recipients of services or victims in need of rescue.
La Strada respects the right of people to make their own individual decisions, including the decision to migrate or the decision to undertake sex work. Therefore, La Strada opposes laws that criminalise migrants or sex workers. More specifically with regard to sex work, La Strada does not advocate the abolition of prostitution or the criminalisation of clients of sex workers, nor does La Strada promote a specific legislation on prostitution. Trafficking occurs both in countries where sex work is legal and in countries where aspects of commercial sex are criminalised. La Strada is convinced that focusing the debate on the abolition of sex work will not lead to the protection of the human rights of the women concerned. This approach is in line with the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Human Beings, which makes a clear distinction between trafficking and sex work.
