ASTRA is a local grass-root non-governmental organization dedicated to the eradication of all forms of trafficking in human beings, especially in women and children.

MISSION

ASTRA is a local grass-root non-gov­ern­men­tal orga­ni­za­tion ded­i­cat­ed to the erad­i­ca­tion of all forms of traf­fick­ing in human beings, espe­cial­ly in women and chil­dren, as well as an effi­cient search for miss­ing chil­dren and pro­tec­tion of chil­dren after they have been found, apply­ing a com­pre­hen­sive approach, with the aim of elim­i­nat­ing this spe­cif­ic form of vio­lence by pro­mot­ing a soci­ety free of all forms of exploita­tion, vio­lence, dis­crim­i­na­tion and eco­nom­ic and social inequalities.

VALUES WE EMBRACE IN OUR WORK

– Respect­ing human rights in accor­dance with inter­na­tion­al standards
– Tol­er­ance and appre­ci­a­tion of differences
– High­est stan­dards of work
– Ded­i­ca­tion and commitment

ASTRA was estab­lished in 2000 as the first actor to raise the issue of human traf­fick­ing in Ser­bia. ASTRA applies a holis­tic approach to the human traf­fick­ing prob­lem, i.e. it deals with all forms of human traf­fick­ing and all cat­e­gories of sur­vivors – women, chil­dren and men, focus­ing its activ­i­ties con­cur­rent­ly on direct vic­tim assis­tance and rein­te­gra­tion, pre­ven­tion, edu­ca­tion, pub­lic aware­ness rais­ing,  research and net­work­ing, advo­ca­cy at a strate­gic and oper­a­tional lev­el and sup­port­ing the build­ing of a func­tion­al and effi­cient counter-traf­fick­ing sys­tem which ful­ly respects vic­tims’ rights.

Ser­bia is the coun­try of ori­gin, tran­sit and destination/exploitation of traf­fick­ing vic­tims. At the begin­ning of our work, the whole of soci­ety – both cit­i­zens and state author­i­ties – were igno­rant of the prob­lem and how impor­tant it was to fight it. For this rea­son, ASTRA pays spe­cial atten­tion to work on pub­lic aware­ness rais­ing and human traf­fick­ing pre­ven­tion, as well as to the edu­ca­tion of all actors – gov­ern­ment and civ­il soci­ety – involved in the process of assist­ing sur­vivors in their recov­ery and rein­te­gra­tion and crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion of perpetrators.

So far ASTRA con­duct­ed or par­tic­i­pat­ed in nine large-scale anti-traf­fick­ing media cam­paigns “Open Your Eyes” (2002), “There Is a Way Out” (2004), “Save the Chil­dren from Human Traf­fick­ing” (2005), “Child Traf­fick­ing – Our Real­i­ty” (2006), “Naked Facts” (2008), “Stop Traf­fick­ing in Chil­dren” (2011), “Labour Exploita­tion. Human Traf­fick­ing. Seri­ous and Orga­nized Crime” and “Stop Labour Exploita­tion” (2012), “Pre­vent, pro­tect, com­pen­sate” (2014).

With­in its Pre­ven­tion and Edu­ca­tion Pro­gram ASTRA has orga­nized or par­tic­i­pat­ed as lec­tur­er in basic and spe­cial­ized train­ings for police offi­cers, judges and pros­e­cu­tors, med­ical doc­tors, school teach­ers, social work­ers, NGO activists, human rights lawyers and media rep­re­sen­ta­tives. Spe­cial atten­tion is paid to work with young peo­ple, who are, although broad and diverse, the cat­e­go­ry under high risk of traf­fick­ing. They are reached out through work­shops, lec­tures, street actions, peer edu­ca­tion, etc. and ASTRA’s activists seek to be present at all events fre­quent­ed by young people.