Defining the Gap - Data policy and human trafficking

KOK Symposium | 14-15 October 2021 | Berlin

Here you can find the complete programme and short biographies of the speakers.

The KOK report Data Collection on Human Trafficking and Exploitation in Germany can be found here.

Moderation

Dr. Claudia Neusüß | managing partner of compassorange GmbH, co-founder of the Center for Women Founders of the Berliner WeiberWirtschaft eG

Dr. Claudia Neusüß is managing partner of compassorange GmbH - the agency for contemporary personnel and organisational development.  She is co-founder of the Center for Women Founders of the Berliner WeiberWirtschaft eG. Claudia Neusüß works as a consultant, speaker, moderator and coach.

WELCOME ADDRESS

14. October 2021 | 11:00

 

The conference will be opened by Andrea Hitzke - board member of KOK, director of the counselling centre Dortmunder Mitternachtsmission.

 

Welcome Address

Juliane Seifert | State Secretary at the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (executive)
Prof. Dr. Beate Rudolf | Director German Institute for Human Rights
 

Introduction to the conference

KOK - German Network against Trafficking in Human Beings

 

Keynote

Diane Schmitt | EU Anti-Trafficking Coordinator

 

Andrea Hitzke | board member of KOK, director the counselling centre Dortmunder Mitternachtsmission

Andrea Hitzke holds a degree in social work and has been head of the Dortmunder Mitternachtsmission e.V. since 2012, where she has been active since 1988. She also has been working as a trainer on child trafficking for ECPAT Deutschland e.V. since 2001. From 2015 to 2019, Andrea was a board member at ECPAT Deutschland e.V. and has been a board member at KOK e.V. since 2014.

Juliane Seifert | State Secretary at the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (executive)

Juliane Seifert, State Secretary at the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth. Since 2018 Juliane Seifert has been State Secretary at the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth. From 2016 until 2017 she held the position of Federal Manager of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). Prior to that, she worked at the State Chancellery of Rhineland-Palatinate and two federal ministries. She studied history in Berlin, Düsseldorf and Florence and completed the German-French course "Master of European Governance and Administration" in Paris and Potsdam.

Prof. Dr. Beate Rudolf | Director German Institute for Human Rights

Prof. Dr iur. Beate Rudolf has been Director of the German Institute for Human Rights since 1 January 2010. Previously, she taught for six years as a junior professor of public law and equality law at the Department of Law at the Free University of Berlin and headed the sub-project "International Law Guidelines for Governance in Weak and Disintegrating States" in the Collaborative Research Centre "Governance in Areas of Limited Statehood". Her research focuses on fundamental and human rights as well as state structure principles according to international law, European law and German constitutional law as well as in a comparative law perspective. Her more than twenty years of research and teaching in these fields (at the Universities of Bonn, Düsseldorf, the Tulane Law School in New Orleans and the Free University of Berlin) were complemented by practical experience in human rights work, including during her legal traineeship at the Council of Europe's Directorate for Human Rights, as a representative of complainants before the European Court of Human Rights, and in many years of voluntary work within the German Women Lawyers Association and the European Women Lawyers Association, of which she was Vice-President until the end of 2011. In 2017, the Free University of Berlin awarded her the Margherita von Brentano Prize "for her outstanding work in the field of human rights and women's rights in particular". From March 2016 to March 2019, she was Chair of the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions (GANHRI).

 

Diane Schmitt | EU Anti-Trafficking Coordinator

Diane is from Luxembourg and studied law in France. She has spent most of her career in the European Commission where she has held different positions and functions across various policy areas. During her career, Diane Schmitt contributed to the development of the migration policy in the Migration and Home Affairs Directorate General and to the internal reform of the European Commission in the Human Resources and Security Directorate General. She was member of the Cabinet of the President of the Commission, as well as Deputy Head of Cabinet of the Vice-President in charge of Justice and Home Affairs. Her first assignment was in the Secretariat General. From 2014 until 2019, Diane Schmitt was Head of Cabinet of the European Commissioner in charge of Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship. During a period characterized by an unprecedented migration crisis and by terrorist attacks, she contributed to the strategic development and implementation of the European policy on migration, border management and security, including cooperation with non-EU countries. After the Cabinet, she used her experience in the Directorate General for Migration and Home Affairs as Adviser for Enhancing External and Internal Policy Aspects of Migration and Security.


Panel I - International and European developments and background on data collection on trafficking and exploitation

14. October 2021 | 14:00

 

Introductory speech

Dr. iur. Julia Planitzer | Group of Experts on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings (GRETA)
 

Round table

Patricia Le Cocq | Myria – Belgian Federal Migration Centre and National Rapporteur on trafficking in human beings
Dr. iur. Julia Planitzer | Group of Experts on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings (GRETA)
Brian Varma | Coordination Center against Human Trafficking Comensha, Netherlands

 

Dr. iur. Julia Planitzer | Group of Experts on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings (GRETA)

Julia Planitzer is Second Vice-President of the Council of Europe Group of Experts on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings (GRETA, member since 2019). She holds a PhD in human rights law from the University of Vienna. Until 2020 she worked as researcher at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Fundamental and Human Rights in Vienna and has held positions as visiting researcher at the University of California/Berkeley, the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law in Lund and the Tilburg Law School. Together with Helmut Sax, she has co-edited ‘A Commentary on the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings’ (Edward Elgar Publishing).

Patricia Le Cocq | Myria – Belgian Federal Migration Centre and National Rapporteur on trafficking in human beings

Ms. Patricia Le Cocq holds a Master in law and a postgraduate in criminology. For more than 15 years, she has been working as a legal advisor at the Human Trafficking Unit of the Federal Migration Centre (previously: Centre for Equal Opportunities and Opposition to Racism), the Belgian independentNational rapporteur on trafficking. Her main tasks consist in drawing up the annual evaluation report on Belgian policy in this field as well as to ensure the follow-up of the judicial proceedings through legal action. She also represents the Centre in the Interdepartmental Coordination Unit for the Fight against human trafficking and smuggling, in charge of the Coordination of the Belgian policy.

Her previous experiences are related to refugees and victim’s assistance, both in Belgium and abroad.

 

Brian Varma | Coordination Center against Human Trafficking Comensha, Netherlands

Brian Varma has been working as manager at CoMensha, the Dutch Coordination Centre against Human Trafficking since 2017. CoMensha is proactive in influencing national and international policies regarding combating human trafficking. CoMensha is also in charge of the registration of potential victims of human trafficking and first coordination of placement in shelters.
Before, he worked for more than 12 years as a policy adviser of the Mayor of Amsterdam on the administrative approach against organized crime and prostitution policy. Brian studied Administrative and Public Law at the University of Groningen.

 


Panel II - Current developments in Germany on the establishment of a reporting body and data collection on trafficking in human beings

14. October 2021 | 16:30

 

Introductory speech

Dr. Bärbel Heide Uhl | German Institute for Human Rights

 

Round table

Helga Gayer | German Criminal Police Office
Dr. Iris Alice Muth | Federal Ministry of Family, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth
Dr. Bärbel Heide Uhl | German Institute for Human Rights
Sophia Wirsching | KOK

 

Dr. Bärbel Heide Uhl | German Institute for Human Rights

Dr. Bärbel Heide Uhl is a political scientist and works as project manager "Planning and trial phase for two reporting centers on gender-based violence and human trafficking" at the German Institute for Human Rights. She is co-founder of the Central and Eastern European NGO network 'La Strada' and founder of the European NGO Initatitive '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). Additionally, she has been working as an expert in EU accession programs in Turkey, Croatia and Romania, and as a consultant for the Council of Europe and UNODC. Until 2011, she held the Chair of the EU Group of Experts 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).

Helga Gayer | German Criminal Police Office

Helga Gayer heads the Human Trafficking Unit at the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA). She joined the Federal Criminal Police Office in 1992 as a fully qualified lawyer and worked on various forms of crime (organized crime investigations, evaluation in the areas of anti-corruption, environmental, weapons and smuggling of migrants). Since 2006, she has been working on combatting human trafficking and is strongly committed to multidisciplinary cooperation at national and international level.

Helga Gayer is a member of the Group of Experts on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings (GRETA) at the Council of Europe. GRETA consists of 15 members with different professional backgrounds who are elected for a four-year term. Helga Gayer started her term in January 2017 and was elected for another four years in 2020. She hiolds the position of GRETA President since March 2021.

Dr. Iris Alice Muth | Federal Ministry of Family, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth

Dr. Iris Muth has been head of the Department for Combatting Trafficking in Human Beings and Prostitute Protection at the BMFSFJ since August 2019. Before that, she headed the “Radicalization Prevention” department at the BMFSFJ and the “Internal Security Fund” at the BKA. From 2002 to 2006 she worked for the Federal Foreign Office as human rights representative at the OSCE in Georgia and from 2006 to 2008 for the BMZ in Central Asia. She studied law in Göttingen and Paris and completed her legal clerkship in Bonn, Bremen and Geneva.

 

Sophia Wirsching | KOK - German Network against Trafficking in Human Beings

Sophia Wirsching has been the Executive Director of the German Network against Trafficking in Human Beings - KOK since September 2018. Previously, the political scientist and sociologist workes as migration and development officer at the Human Rights and Peace Department of the aid organisation "Brot für die Welt" in Berlin for ten years. At "Brot für die Welt" she worked intensively on the consequences of European refugee and migration policy on human rights and development.

 


Panel III - Between access to support structures and collection of trafficked persons’ data: Data collection, identification of trafficked persons and the right to privacy – strategies and challenges

15. October 2021 | 09:30

 

Introductory speech

Prof. Ryszard Piotrowicz | Aberystwyth University
 

Round table

Monika Cissek-Evans | counselling centre JADWIGA Munich
Dr. Julia Muraszkiewicz | Trilateral Research UK/Ireland
Prof. Ryszard Piotrowicz | Aberystwyth University
Freya Rudek | Women’s Shelter Coordination

 

Prof. Ryszard Piotrowicz | Aberystwyth University

Ryszard Piotrowicz has been a professor of Law at Aberystwyth University since 1999. He was a member of GRETA from 2013-20, Vice-President from 2017-20. He also served two terms as a member of the European Commission’s Group of Experts on Trafficking in Human Beings (2008-15). He is Adjunct Professor at the University of South Australia, Visiting Professor in Migration Law at Viadrina University, Frankfurt-Oder, and a Senior Research Associate at the Refugee Law Initiative, University of London. He is an Alexander-von-Humboldt Fellow, and a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales. He has acted as a consultant on human trafficking for the Council of Europe, IOM, OSCE, UNHCR, EU and ICMPD, as well as national governments and NGOs, and has conducted training programmes on human trafficking in many countries. He has published extensively on the law relating to human trafficking and migration. He is a member of the Wales Anti-Slavery Leadership Group, and is currently working on a number of projects relating to legal issues concerning human trafficking. He is a member of the Board of Editors of the International Journal of Refugee Law.

Monika Cissek-Evans | counselling centre JADWIGA Munich

Monika Cissek-Evans is a social pedagogue, active in women's work and migration counselling since the mid-1980s, since 1999 development and management of the counselling centres JADWIGA in Munich and Nuremberg for the counselling of victims of international trafficking in women, labour exploitation and (threatened) forced marriage at the non-profit gGmbH "STOP dem Frauen- handel".

Dr. Julia Muraszkiewicz | Trilateral Research UK/Ireland

Julia Muraszkiewicz began building her expertise in human trafficking in 2013 through her PhD. Her thesis looked at the following question: The legal framework on non-liability for victims of human trafficking: should, and can, the European Union ask more of Member States? Her theoretical and policy knowledge is complimented by first-hand real-world experiences, including numerous interactions with trafficking victims, perpetrators, and counter-trafficking practitioners. She has worked at safe houses for male victims of trafficking and has delivered numerous training sessions on human trafficking to a wide range of audiences, including government officials, police, border forces, civil society, senior military personnel, humanitarian organisations, and youth programs. She currently leads the Socio-Tech team at Trilateral Research and leads projects that intersect data science and human trafficking (e.g., project Honeycomb).  

 

Freya Rudek | Women’s Shelter Coordination

Freya Rudek has been working at Frauenhauskoordinierung e.V. (Women’s Shelter Coordination) for a good two years, where she is in charge of the nationwide and annually published statistics on women's shelters and their residents and organises events. Previously, Freya Rudek conducted the study "Que(e)rschnitt Inklusion. Stocktaking of an Inclusive LGBTIQ Infrastructure in Berlin" for Camino Werkstatt and is a graduate in gender studies (M.A.).

 

 


Panel IV - Policies and strategies to combat trafficking in human beings – what role can data collection and reporting play?

15. October 2021 | 12:00

 

Round table with members of the German Bundestag

BÜNDNIS 90/DIE GRÜNEN | Filiz Polat
CDU/CSU | Serap Güler (t.b.c.)
DIE LINKE | Zaklin Nastic
FDP | Gyde Jensen
SPD | Frank Schwabe

 

Filiz Polat | BÜNDNIS 90/DIE GRÜNEN

Graduate economist; member of Bündnis 90/Die Grünen since 1996 (active since 1986); 2005 to 2007 deputy state chairperson B'90/Grüne; 2004 to 2017 member of the state parliament of Niedersachsen; 2006 to 2016 member of the city council of Bramsche; 2011 to 2016 member of Osnabrück district council; member of "Eine Welt Verein e.V."; member of "IndienHilfe Deutschland e.V."; member of the "Stadtmuseum Quakenbrück" support association; member of the advisory board of the Augustaschacht and Gestapokeller Osnabrück memorial; member of the "Kontrastive Alphabetisierung im Situationsansatz" (KASA) project advisory board; supporting member of the Landesfrauenrat Niedersachsen e.V.; supporting member of the Verband Entwicklungspolitik Niedersachsen e.V. (Association for Development Policy in Lower Saxony). (VEN); supporting member of Sea Eye e.V.; supporting member of the Refugee Law Clinic Hanover; deputy chairperson of the Europa-Union in the district association Osnabrück city and state; deputy member of the board of trustees of the Federal Agency for Civic Education; member of the advisory board of "Schule ohne Rassismus - Schule mit Courage"; awards: Premio Comites Hannover 2013 of the Republic of Italy.

Zaklin Nastic | DIE LINKE

Since 2008 member of the political party Die Linke, 2016 to 2018 and since 2020 state spokesperson of Die Linke Hamburg, 2013 to 2017 member of the federal committee of Die Linke, since 2011 to 2017 member of the district assembly of Hamburg-Eimsbüttel, among other things parliamentary group chair, spokesperson for inclusion, migration, urban planning, senior citizens and health.
August to October 2017 Member of the Hamburg Parliament, Spokesperson for Labour Market Policy and Integration; since 2017 Member of the German Bundestag, Spokesperson for Human Rights Policy of the parliamentary group Die Linke. Since 2018 member of the party executive of Die Linke.

Gyde Jensen | FDP

Master of Arts International Politics/International Law; 2015 to 2017 Communications Officer of a political foundation.
FDP member and JuLi member since 2010 (District Chair of the Young Liberals Rendsburg-Eckernförde, Deputy District Chair of the FDP Rendsburg-Eckernförde, member of the State Executive Committee of the FDP SH; member Kiel-Starting-City e.V.).

Frank Schwabe | SPD

Studied economics in Osnabrück and landscape management, history, political science and sociology in Essen. Worked as a staff member for a member of the German parliament and an
Member of the European Parliament. Tour guide at various industrial-cultural sites in the Ruhr area.
Member of BUND, IG BCE, AWO, the German-Austrian Miners' Association and Schalke 04, among others.
2001 to 2005 honorary judge at the Administrative Court of Gelsenkirchen, 2004 to 2005 deputy chairman of the Police Advisory Council Police Headquarters Recklinghausen. Deputy President of GLOBE Germany.
Joined the SPD in 1991, member of the Ickern local association executive committee since 1992, member of the city association executive committee, sub-district executive committee and district executive committee of the Jusos, from 2002 to 2010 chairman of the Castrop-Rauxel city association and member of the Westphalia regional executive committee, member of the SPD party convention. Member of the Castrop-Rauxel city council from 2004 to 2013, member of the Recklinghausen district council from 2004 to 2005. Member of the Bundestag since 2005, Spokesperson for Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid of the SPD parliamentary group since 2014..