NGOs making a difference

UNODC recently hosted a crime prevention forum for more than 60 NGOs from Eastern, Central and South-eastern Europe. The key topics discussed were urban crime, corruption and human trafficking.

Profiles of three of the participating groups follow:

Institute for Public Policy; Bucharest, Romania

The Institute for Public Policy's (IPP) areas of expertise include reform of the public administration and finances, political reform, issues related to Romania's European Union accession and research on political and economic cooperation between Romania and the Republic of Moldova.

A key area of concern for IPP is corruption. One of its recent campaigns was aimed at increasing transparency in the Romanian parliamentary voting procedures and thus preventing corruption.

"Citizens should have access to all the votes of the Members of Parliament," says Gabriela Dobre, a programme assistant at IPP, "so they can better inform (themselves) about the activities of their officially elected representatives and make them more accountable to their constituents."

This campaign employed a two-pronged approach. On the one hand, IPP collaborated with the leaders of the main political parties, as well as members of the relevant parliamentary committees, to draft legislation that would allow registration and publication of voting records. On the other, the Institute generated public pressure on MPs to pass this legislation.

Because of the complexity of parliamentary voting procedures, it takes time to make the required legislative changes to publicize the votes. It is necessary for both chambers of parliament to adopt new Standing Orders to allow electronic voting and to make the results public. Furthermore, Romania's Constitutional Court has challenged some of the new legal provisions, which means they will have to be discussed in Parliament again.

Despite these challenges, the campaign has succeeded in the lower chamber (Chamber of Deputies) where voting is now done electronically and the recorded results are made available on the Chamber's website. IPP will keep pressuring the Senate to introduce similar procedures, Dobre says.

Living for Tomorrow; Tallinn, Estonia

Living for Tomorrow was founded to provide interesting, understandable and relevant information on reproductive health for young people in Estonia. Training sessions emphasize participatory learning, integrating gender awareness as a key component.

Today, the organization also works to prevent human trafficking, as Estonia is a significant source country of women and girls traded for sexual exploitation. It does so by providing training on human trafficking-related topics and by managing a hotline for victims of this crime. Zanna Jozef, the organization's anti-trafficking programme manager, says there is a need for increased awareness and knowledge about this multifaceted problem.

"We organize a number of interactive workshops, particularly for young people," Ms. Jozef says. "Peer education is very effective for this group, and we also try to include people from other countries and cultures to make the workshops even more dynamic."

In addition, Living for Tomorrow is involved in research on gender and sexuality-related issues. The organization also actively recruits and trains volunteers to organize events and other activities.

Yeniden Health and Education Society; Istanbul, Turkey

This Turkish NGO, founded by a group of psychologists, psychiatrists and educators, works in the area of drug addiction prevention, particularly among youth at risk. Characteristics of youth at risk include drug use, poor school attendance records, involvement in crime and/or violence and generally self-destructive behaviour.

Through training programmes, psychosocial support for street children and community centres, Yeniden makes a difference in the lives of numerous young people on a daily basis.

"I used to work in treatment," says Dr. Kültegin Ögel, a psychiatrist working at Yeniden. "The problem is that there is just never enough treatment available. Working in prevention, as I do now, is more satisfying because the work has a more direct impact."

The organization runs weekly training programmes throughout Turkey to educate parents, teachers, social workers and other groups in close contact with young people about addiction prevention and early intervention techniques. Yeniden has also run programmes targeted at municipalities and non-governmental organizations.

"With globalization and urbanization affecting every country in the world," Dr. Ögel says, "drug problems will increase as well. We have to try to prevent this, and education is very important."