Director-General/Executive Director
19 May 2015
Distinguished participants,
Good morning, and my thanks for coming.
The UN Trust Fund for Victims of Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, helps victims to become survivors, to reclaim their dignity and rebuild their lives.
Established through the UN General Assembly's 2010 Global Plan of Action to Combat Trafficking in Persons and administered by UNODC, the Trust Fund channels humanitarian, legal and financial aid to victims through selected NGOs.
I had the privilege of presenting the work of the Trust Fund at a high-level event at the 13th Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice in Doha last month.
I am happy to say that since then, we have received an additional pledge from Thailand for 25,000 dollars. My sincere thanks to Thailand.
The Fund helps to ensure that women, children and men who have been exploited by traffickers are identified and provided with the assistance, protection and support needed for their physical, psychological and social recovery.
The Trust Fund is also enabling survivors to seek justice against their traffickers in court.
Survivors like Skye, who was trafficked to India when she was just 13.
After escaping back home to Nepal, she filed a case against her trafficker and with the help of NGO Shakti Samuha was able to resume her studies.
She won her case, finished school and now works as a staff member at Shakti Samuha, helping other survivors.
The Trust Fund has shown that it can change people's lives, and help them help others.
The first three-year grant cycle ended last December. Some 2,000 victims annually benefitted from direct assistance, including provision of shelter, basic health services, vocational training and schooling, as well as psychosocial, legal and economic support.
And this work continues. The call for proposals for the second grant cycle received over 100 proposals from 59 countries, for grant funding of nearly one million dollars.
Unfortunately, only 17 seventeen projects could be funded with the money available.
A further 54 fifty-four eligible projects have been put on a reserve list, should more funding be provided.
The continuing difficulties in raising money for the Trust Fund, despite its very real achievements in the lives of people all over the world, remains a key challenge in providing meaningful assistance.
Since it was established, the Trust Fund has received just over two million dollars in paid contributions from 19 nineteen Member States and over 30 thirty private-sector donors.
While these contributions have been very gratefully received, they remain below the level of funding needed.
I hope we can rely on your support to ensure that the Trust Fund can have the reach and impact envisaged by the Global Plan of Action.
Let me conclude by thanking the donors of the Trust Fund. This includes our distinguished private sector partners.
I would in particular like to thank Mr. Ali Rahimi for his dedication to this cause, and to congratulate him on his appointment as a National UNODC Goodwill Ambassador for Austria.
We also have Austrian foundation PeopleShare with us today, my thanks for your generous support.
Ladies and gentlemen,
We need your continued assistance to help many more women, children and men who have survived the ordeal of trafficking, and who deserve a chance to build a better life.
Thank you.