Trafficking in human beings, often described as “modern slavery”, is a serious crime associated with exploitation of people who are treated as commodity for sale. Trafficking is a highly lucrative business for traffickers, with gains between 7 and 8 billion annually worldwide. For the victims, human trafficking is always accompanied with violence, control, coercion and false promises. For the majority of people in Bulgaria this problem sounds unreal, or distant, but the truth is that this is one of the biggest risks for the well-being of citizens and society’s security at the moment.
Trafficking in human beings and particularly the children on move, as a cross-border phenomenon, affects the countries in Eastern Europe due to their geographical position which makes them primarily countries of origin and transit. The strategic location makes these countries particularly vulnerable to illegal channels for human trafficking and human smuggling. There are several other rationales that contribute for this situation such as economic inequalities between different strata of the societies due to educational reasons, unemployment and poverty.
In 2011, in collaboration with the National Commission for Combating Trafficking of Human Beings (NCCTHB), BFPA implemented the first stage of the campaign “Two Little Girls”. The campaign is based on short animated film aimed to inform young women in Eastern Europe of the danger of being sex trafficked. It follows the stories of two young women who were cruelly deceived by people they knew and trusted and were then trafficked into sex working against their will. The “Two Little Girls” campaign is currently active in eight countries in Eastern Europe (Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Moldova, Bulgaria, Belarus, Romania & Lithuania).
The initial design of the campaign was done by the UK charity “EAVES” and was supported by various NGOs such as Ingrid Broad, Women’s Trust Fund, Network for Social Change, Staples Trust, Esmee Fairbairn Foundation, Tudor Trust and Comic Relief. Early in 2012 a further grant was agreed by Comic Relief to allow campaigns in each country to develop a second phase following interesting initiatives developed during the first phase of the campaign. Also extra support was given on the administrative and monitoring side.
In 2012 EAVES and BFPA introduced new pilot action targeting the children from the most vulnerable communities in Bulgaria. The approach relies on the involvement of Roma children in the design and elaboration of short animation that addresses the main causes for poverty. The approach has 2 inter-related sides: firstly the product will be produced following the identified local needs of the young people and secondly, while the children are involved in the design of the animation it creates room for dissemination of wide range of topics related to trafficking, gender, education etc.
