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On the 7th of October – World Decent Workers Day – La Strada International co-organised the webinar ‘Protecting Asian Migrants in Europe’, together with Freedom Collaborative and Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW). This webinar celebrated the launch of LSI’s new report Protecting Asian Trafficking Victims in Europe. In Focus: Czech Republic, Poland, and Romania and its accompanying Policy Paper. The report is based on desk research and interviews conducted by LSI members La Strada Czech Republic, La Strada Poland and ADPARE (Romania).

In mid-September the European Commission proposed a regulation to ban products made from forced labour, within and outside the union. While La Strada International supports the proposed ban, we are concerned that the current proposal does not include measures to secure rights and remedies for affected workers.  Another point of critique by us and other civil society organisations is that EU’s proposed ban does not specifically mention state-induced forced labour.

Organizations working in the anti-trafficking and forced labour sphere must increase collaboration with each other, and with legal firms and pro-bono lawyers, in order to address the legal needs of vulnerable Asian migrants in Europe, according to experts. At a workshop held on 26th of January, hosted by Freedom Collaborative, PILnet and La Strada International, civil society and legal representatives from across Europe and Asia concluded that working together would be the most effective way to tackle the challenges around the exploitation and trafficking of these migrants.