Organization Structure

Organization Structure

The member organizations of the KOK have joined together in an association to strengthen the representation of their members' political and social interests. To support this endeavor, a Office and Coordination established, whose task is accordingly networking, advocacy and public relations work as well as knowledge transfer.

The Association

KOK – German NGO Network against Trafficking in Human Beings is an association of 43 organizations and a registered, non-profit organization.

The decision-making body of the KOK is the General Assembly, which meets twice a year. Representatives of the member organizations discuss measures for implementing the KOK's objectives, debate current political needs, and decide on the KOK's respective priorities as well as demands on policymakers and society. The General Assemblies are designed to provide ample opportunity for substantive exchange and discussion, ensuring the highest possible practical relevance in the KOK's work. The General Assembly also elects the Executive Board from among the member organizations; these members serve on a voluntary basis.

The work of the KOK thrives on the expert knowledge contributed by representatives of its member organizations. Given the broad range of topics the KOK addresses, it is necessary to work more intensively on specific issues. Therefore, the KOK's member organizations also organize themselves into topic-specific working groups as needed. These working groups operate independently and develop ideas for joint approaches, which are then presented to the general assembly.

In addition, the KOK organizes networking meetings and invites experts from other countries to attend.

The goals of this collaboration include:

  • common positions in the subject area Trafficking in Human Beings and to develop exploitation strategies in order to be able to represent them externally,
  • To enable the exchange of experience and to establish a high level of information through active knowledge management,
  • To identify the need for action in practice in order to demand improvements at the political or legal level.  

You can find more information about the club here. here.

The board

The board consists of at least three and at most five members and is elected for a two-year term. It represents the KOK in all legal and extrajudicial matters and serves on a voluntary basis. The board works closely with and is supported by the KOK's office.

The responsible and extensive work of the board is currently being carried out by

The advisory board

The KOK advisory board brings together diverse expertise that supports the KOK in its strategic direction and substantive work. The advisory board members have many years of experience in this field. Trafficking in Human Beings, both in practical consulting work and legal and political advocacy work for the enforcement of human rights and the elimination of human trafficking.

Monika Cissek-Evans

Social worker (Dipl.-Sozialpädagogin), active in women's work and migration counseling since the mid-80s, involved in the development of the [organization/project] since 1999 specialised counselling centres JADWIGA in Munich and Nuremberg for victims of Trafficking in women, labor exploitation and the (threatened) forced marriage at the non-profit organization "STOP Trafficking in Women". She headed JADWIGA until 2022.

Barbara Eritt

Active in the field of migration since the mid-80s. In the early to mid-90s, she established support structures for women in precarious, exploitative working conditions without legal residency status. She also established and developed the coordination and advice center for women, which was run by Trafficking in Human Beings are affected, at IN VIA Catholic Girls' Social Work for the Archdiocese of Berlin eV initiation and cooperation in the development of international networks against Trafficking in Human BeingsBoard member of KOK eV from 2006-2012 and 2019-2022

Dr. Ina Holznagel

Born in 1960, she studied law in Kiel and Bonn, received her doctorate in 1989, and worked as a public prosecutor in Hamburg from 1991 to 1997. From 1998 to 2000, she was a criminal law advisor in the Hamburg Ministry of Justice, where she also contributed to the establishment of the Round Table on Human Trafficking with the Coordination Office against Trafficking in women eV (KoFra). From August 2000, Head of Department at the Public Prosecutor's Office in Dortmund with special responsibility for human trafficking cases, contributing to the development of the "Dortmund Model" together with the Dortmund Midnight Mission. From February 2003, permanent guest of the Criminal Law Committee of the Federal Bar Association in Berlin. Since January 2013, Head of Division at the Ministry of Justice in Düsseldorf, where her responsibilities include, among other things, gender-based violence. Trafficking in Human Beings and judicial data protection.

Mechtild Maurer

No further information

Behshid Najafi

Born in 1956, she studied political science in Iran and education in the USA. In Iran, she campaigned for democracy and social justice. Due to her political activism, she had to leave Iran and has lived in Germany since 1986. From the beginning, she has been committed to fighting discrimination and advocating for the human rights of migrant and refugee women. From 1993, she worked at agisra e.V., an information and counseling center for migrant and refugee women in Cologne, which she helped establish and shaped for 27 years until her retirement. She is one of the co-founders of KOK e.V. and initially served on its board. From 2016 to 2018, she was a board member of the European network PICUM (Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants). Since retiring in 2021, she has been active on the board of agisra e.V. She also lectures in social work at Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences. She gives lectures, organizes seminars and workshops on various topics concerning women, refugees, migration and human rights, and writes contributions for, among others, the KOK knowledge compendium.

Prof. Dr. Joachim Renzikowski

Born in 1961, he studied law in Erlangen. He passed the First and Second State Examinations in Law in 1986 and 1989, respectively. He received his doctorate (1993) and habilitation (1997) in Tübingen in the fields of criminal law, criminal procedure, and legal theory. Since 1998, he has held the Chair of Criminal Law and Legal Philosophy/Legal Theory at the Faculty of Law of the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. His research focuses include, among other things, criminal law dogmatics, sexual criminal law, and human rights.

Naile Tanış

She has been the head of the reporting office since May 2023. Trafficking in Human Beings at the German Institute for Human Rights. Previous positions: from 2020 in the Berlin Senate Department for Health, Care and Equality (Department "No Violence Against Women"), prior to that full-time Women's Representative at the Berlin University of the Arts. She studied law and is a fully qualified lawyer. In addition to her core duties as Women's Representative, she implemented various equality policy measures during her first term in office, including numerous conferences and publications. Before her work as Women's Representative, she served for 14 years as Managing Director of the Federal Coordination Circle against Trafficking in Human Beings – KOK e. V. There she was responsible for project and financial management, supported networking, committee, lobbying and project work, and authored various publications on the topic. Trafficking in Human Beings and was heard several times as an expert witness in the Bundestag.

Dr. Bärbel Heide Uhl

Political scientist, has been working against [unclear] since 1994 Trafficking in Human Beings and violence against women in Europe. She is a co-founder of the Central and Eastern European NGO network 'La Strada' and founder of the European NGO initiative 'datACT - data protection in anti-trafficking action'. She has worked for the OSCE in the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and for the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (OSCE/ODIHR), as an expert in EU accession programs in Turkey, Croatia, and Romania, as well as for the Council of Europe and UNODC. Until 2011, she chaired the EU expert group on combating Trafficking in Human Beings in Brussels. Bärbel Heide Uhl is co-editor of the Routledge Handbook on Human Trafficking (2017) and author of the monograph "The Security of Human Rights" (2014).

The KOK currently has 43 member organizations affiliated organizations, which work with different content and thematic focuses:

Only organizations that promote and support the goals of the KOK can become members. There are the... Possibility of ordinary and extraordinary membership.