GATE - Guardians for separated children Against Trafficking

GATE – Guardians for separated children Against Trafficking and any form of Exploitation: Standards and Training for the qualification of guardians for separated children against trafficking and exploitation

The project aims to increase the capacity of the guardianship systems in Italy, Greece, Cyprus and the Netherlands to protect separated children against trafficking and exploitation.

Funded by: EC DG Home Affairs Duration: 10/2011 – 04/2013

Challenge

Guardians play a crucial role in knowing separated children’s personal history, background and experiences and in promoting the adoption of the best solution for their assistance, protection and integration accordingly. Besides their important legal functions and responsibilities, guardians represent the most recognizable and efficient link between the child (actual or potential) victim of trafficking and the various agencies the child comes in contact with, ensure that the child is informed and facilitate the communication and the coordination among all actors involved.

Considering the guardians’ strategic role for the protection of separated children (potential) victims of trafficking and for the prevention of the reiteration of trafficking phenomena, the GATE initiative would significantly match with the Prevention of and Fight against Crime Programme specific objective consisting in “promoting and developing best practices for the protection of crime victims”.

Innovation

The GATE project aims at strengthening the competences and capacities of guardianship systems against trafficking and exploitation, by creating a set of standards and educational material for guardians of separated children.

Action

The consortium produced 4 National reports and 1 European Report that involve information regarding each country’s national legislation and protection system around separated children, as well as professionals’ and separated children’s experiences throughout the system.

Read the national report for Greece, in English and Greek.

Read the EU report.

A set of national and EU key indicators, on how to better prevent and protect separated children from trafficking in human beings, was developed.

In addition, a training guide was developed and a 2-day training session was implemented in each country involved, in order to strengthen the competences of professionals involved in the field of separated children, trafficking and exploitation.

Finally, all project results were presented to other professionals of other European and non-European countries during the Final Study Seminar that took place in Brussels on March 5, 2013.

European Commission’s support for the production of this content does not constitute an endorsement of the contents, which reflect the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Project Partners

**KMOP – Social Action and Innovation Centre**

Defence for Children International (Italy)