Networking on trafficking for sexual exploitation

Trafficking of human beings is a difficult field of intervention and very recent in Portugal (RCM nº 81/2007), where most of the known victims are for labour exploitation, therefore research struggles with many obstacles. In order to develop the CEINAV work the Portuguese team has a new associate partner: APF (Portuguese Family Planning Association - http://www.apf.pt/apf.php?lg=pt ; http://www.apf.pt/apf.php?lg=uk ). This NGO is specialized in intervention in the field of trafficking of human beings and runs a shelter for women victims. Besides this NGO, CEINAV also keeps networking with CIG (Portuguese Commission For Citizenship and Gender Equality) where Manuel Albano acts as the National Rapporteur for trafficking.    

To deepen some issues around trafficking for sexual exploitation, CEINAV met in Porto with CIG and APF, in the 8th of April, and discussed the following topics: assisted return, difficulties in the assignment of the victim status, access to health care by illegal immigrants and the difficulties in finding volunteers to be interviewed by the CEINAV project.     

This meeting is part of a networking process which is highly relevant to an epistemological position linking research and practice in the field of human trafficking for sexual exploitation.

Fire up creativity - Artist meeting in London

On 30th and 31th March 2015 CEINAV brought together all their 4 artist researchers in London Metropolitan University: Iona Roisin from the UK team, Lana Zdravković from the Slovenian team, Ninette Rothmüller from the German team and Raquel Felgueiras from the Portuguese team. We exchanged our experiences and views about working with marginalized, deprived and discriminated people in the context of violence as well as debated about methodology we will use on the art workshops with the survivors of violence. In each country we will moderate the creative process which will be based on the stories created out of the interviews with the survivors but those will just inform the artists; the art workshops will not be built around the stories as some kind of script.

In each country one or two art workshops will be implemented for all three forms of violence. Whilst there has to be a set of basic parameters for the workshops some of the more specific questions cannot be the same across the four country contexts, as they are dependent on the particulars of who and how many agree to take part in the workshops, where they are located geographically and how each artist develops the workshop concept.  There are, therefore, layers of flexibility and variability in the creative process which we should consider an asset, part of what the project is in fact about – the processes and creative outcomes will not be the same, they are cultural encounters!

The process needs to produce something – a creative outcome – from what participants want to communicate about intervention that will be accessible to various audiences. 

All artists will work within their fields of experience having in mind that including creative art in the research project is a certain experiment, both for artists and researchers. But since we have high ethical standards and respect the decisions and wishes of the people we will work with we hope it will be fruitful for all of us. 

Lana Zdravkovic