post

Press Conference: the Nigerian film Òlòturé to combat sex trafficking

INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY UNITES TO SUPPORT EFFORTS TO COMBAT
SEX TRAFFICKING IN NIGERIA WITH THE SCREENING OF OLOTURE IN ABUJA AND BENIN CITY

WHAT: The Gloria Steinem Equality Fund to End Sex Trafficking and its local partner Associazione Iroko Onlus invite you to a press conference on sex trafficking prior to the screening of Nigerian film Òlòturé directed by Kenneth Gyang and produced by EbonyLife Films. The film will be followed by a high-level panel discussion on sex trafficking and a reception. This event has been jointly supported by the Embassies of Argentina, France, Italy, Spain, Sweden and the United States as well as FIIAPP and UN Women.

Here you can find the full text.

Press review:

National Accord Newspaper

Press Conference video

Kapital FM Abuja on Twitter

Daily Asset

New publication: Gender-specific integration model

New publication: Gender-specific integration model (GeSIM) for victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation and abuse 

In order to effectively implement gender-specific integration programmes for female third country nationals who are victims of trafficking in human beings (THB), service providers need to integrate gender as well as cultural sensitivity into their everyday work. This handbook is a step towards strengthening victim support service providers and your individual capacity as practitioner in taking gender-specific approaches and setting up gender-specific support programmes for women victims of THB.  

The Gender-specific integration model (GeSIM) is published within the framework of the project COALESCE: Legal, Psycho-social and economic empowerment for the integration of women third country nationals (TCN) victims of human trafficking (VoT) for sexual exploitation and abuse (Coalesce Project EC AMIF: 958133), led by the Mediterranean Institute of Gender Studies (MIGS) (Cyprus). 

Partners: Cyprus Refugee Council (Cyprus), CARITAS Cyprus, IROKO Onlus (Italy), Marta Centre (Latvia), European Network of Migrant Women, Immigrant Council Ireland, Solwodi(Germany),  KSPSC  (Lithuania). 

The GeSIM handbook is available in: English, German, Greek, Italian, Latvian and Lithuanian.

 

For more information on the COALESCE Project and our other publications, click here.

Unforgettable: I started from scratch

The COALESCE project aims at providing support to female migrant victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation in Europe through gender-specific psycho-social, legal and economic support and assistance. 

Within the framework of the COALESCE project we are happy to announce a series of blog posts that bring forward the stories and perspectives of migrant women victims of trafficking in their integration journeys in Europe. 

Today we bring you “Unforgettable: I started from scratch”, written by a women accompanied and supported by our partner SOLWODI (Germany). 

Involving five European countries – Cyprus, Latvia, Italy, Lithuania, Ireland, and Germany – our partnership is set to develop synergies and complementarities in facilitating needs identification, assistance and support, and improve transnational cooperation among frontline professionals and practitioners in the field of trafficking of women for sexual exploitation.

This project is funded by the European Union Asylum Migration and Integration Fund. 

Learn more about the COALESCE project here.

“Unforgettable: I started from scratch”
Life, as they say, cannot be predicted. Wanting to live a normal life is asking too much but, what is the dream of every child that has been born into this world? Well, they can still dream. They are still babies, and their parents are responsible. A very important question is what happens to the child when parents or the family that is supposed to love and care for the child are the ‘problem’ – when they are the oneshurting the child. An innocent child, a sweet girl. I didn’t ask to be born. It wasn’t my fault that I was born into this world, and I didn’t choose my parents or family. I did nothing wrong. I grew like every normal kid until life took a U-turn when my mother remarried. I never knew my father. Having a new daddy changed everything for me: I became the bad blood, the one who everybody blames for everything. I wasn’t allowed to make mistakes, like every other child. When I did, they hit me at the slightest provocation. I never understood why everything changed, why they hated me. I mean, what does an 8-year-old child know?

Continue reading this story…

post

Child10 Launch Best Practice Report with IROKO and other 2021 Awardees

Today, on the occasion of the International Day against Sexual Exploitation and Trafficking of Women and Children 2021, Child10 have released the report on Best Practices in Programming for Child Victims of Trafficking and Commercial Sexual Exploitation.
 
The report gathers best practice examples from the Child10 2021 Awarded Member Organizations working directly with child victims and children at risk of commercial sexual exploitation and trafficking throughout Europe. Associazione IROKO is very proud to be one this year’s awarded members and to have contributed to this report.
 
 
Read the report in full.
post

Pornography and Prostitution: In Conversation with Gail Dines

Pornography and Prostitution: In Conversation with Gail Dines
#DebunkingSexWork

In spring 2021 Associazione Iroko Onlus organized a series of seminars entitled “Debunking sex work: conversations around prostitution”, bringing together various experts, survivors and activists from around the world. Every week two women explored the phenomenon of prostitution from a different perspective: from the links with trafficking and pornography, to  language, current laws, and finally the policies needed to implement the abolitionist model.

The first session was hosted by Esohe Aghatise, who welcomed Gail Dines, professor of sociology and studies on women at Wheelock College in Boston and founder and president of Culture Reframed. For many years, Dines has been carrying out research on pornography and the sex industry and has been called “the world’s leading feminist anti-pornography activist” by The Guardian .

Read More

post

Launch of COALESCE Mind the Gap Reports

Within the framework of the United Nations World Day against Trafficking in Persons, the #COALESCE partnership presents the Mind the Gap Reports: a needs analysis for the integration of migrant female victims of #HumanTrafficking for sexual exploitation/abuse in 6 different countries. Read the full reports here in English:

Cyprus
Germany
Ireland
Italy
Latvia
Lithuania 

post

Debunking ‘sex work’ #2 Language, Migration and Trafficking

Debunking ‘sex work’ #2 Language, Migration and Trafficking with Anna Zobnina and Marie Merklinger

We hope you all enjoyed the second instalment in our Debunking ‘sex work’ series, which saw Anna Zobnina, Policy Coordinator for the European Network of Migrant Women and member of the Executive committee of European Women’s Lobby, and Marie Merklinger, activist and member of SPACE International, in conversation with Olesia Sagaidak from Radical Girlsss.

If you missed it, you can watch it in full on our Facebook page!

post

Debunking ‘Sex Work’: Conversations about Prostitution May/June 2021

We are so excited to have kicked off our series of online events entitled Debunking ‘Sex Work’: Conversations about Prostitution! Last week saw conversation #1 hosted by our very own Esohe Aghatise, who talked to Gail Dines, PornlandAuthor and Founder and President of Culture Reframed, on the theme of Pornogrpahy and Prostitution. You can watch the recording of the event here

Check out our event page on Facebook for updates on all of the exciting speakers that will join us from around the world each week.

This series continues every Thursday at 12 noon EDT / 5pm UK / 6pm CET until 1st July, so follow this link to sign up to watch on Zoom (with Italian translation available) or follow the event on Facebook Live!

post

Introducing the COALESCE Project

We are very pleased to start a new project COALESCE, which began in January 2021, funded by the AMIF Fund and led by the Mediterranean Institute of Gender Studies (MIGS), in partnership with Cyprus Refugee Council (Cyprus), CARITAS Cyprus, IROKO Onlus (Italy), Marta Centre (Latvia), European Network of Migrant Women, Immigrant Council Ireland, Solwodi (Germany), Klapeida (Lithuania).

Coalesce is a two-year transnational project involving five European countries: Cyprus, Latvia, Italy, Lithuania, Ireland, and Germany.

Read our press release to find out exactly what the project is all about!

 

post

Rachel Moran’s Book Recommendations

In her interview with Radical Girlsss to mark the EU’s Anti-Trafficking Day 2020, Rachel Moran, whose own book Paid for: My Journey through Prostitution we consider a must-read for everybody, was asked about what advice she would give young women today. She talked about the modern challenges posed by social media and the way young women are constantly bombarded with images and messages about sexuality, as well as the importance of arming ourselves with information, learning from the feminists who have gone before us.

“We, all of us – young women and middle-aged women like myself – we need to respect our elders, and that’s something that I don’t see us doing often enough. Because there are women who’ve come before us, who have written extremely important texts and, honestly, if I had read – I’m not sure when Sheila Jeffreys’ The Idea of Prostitution was actually published, I think it might have been during the ‘90s. But I can tell you had I read that book before I got into prostitution, I wouldn’t have gone near prostitution. You know, because it lays out so very clearly the dynamics of what prostitution involves

Read More