History of our Founding and Fundamental Operations.

The Angel Coalition is the first registered association of women’s organizations in the Russian Federation and is the only non-governmental organization in Russia whose operations and workers are solely devoted to the fight against human trafficking. Founded in St. Petersburg in 1999, the Coalition quickly developed into an active consortium of 61 regional organizations from 25 different regions of the Russian Federation and nine former Soviet republics; these organizations carry out informational campaigns both for and with local authorities, as well as with the mass media and with community, governmental, and international organizations.

Goals of our operations:

The Angel Coalition carries out programs guided by the following objectives:

- Prevention of human trafficking through legislative initiatives, raising public awareness, training, exchange of experience, and propagating information.

- Aid to victims of human trafficking through programs of rescue, reintegration, and rehabilitation.

Achievements to-date and current programs:

(1) Aid to victims of human trafficking:

In the summer of 2003, the Center for Aid to Human Trafficking Victims was founded in Moscow. With five regional shelters opened by the members of the Coalition, the realization of the first rescue and rehabilitation programs was begun for victims of human trafficking returning to the Russian Federation. In the summer of 2004, four more shelters were opened. With the support of the Center for Aid to Human Trafficking Victims, regional members of the Angel Coalition now work directly with the structures of the federal government and with international organizations to secure vital public support. At the Center’s disposal are a fully equipped office and a staff of five full-time and several part-time workers (Russian and foreign volunteers), whose daily work is to help women and girls who have become victims of forced prostitution in Europe and the near East. The Center actively collaborates with the Moscow city council’s Commission for Women’s Affairs in the area of developing methods to help women who are sold into Moscow from countries of the CIS. The Center closely cooperates with the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

(2) Legislative initiatives in the fight against human trafficking – the federal level:

Since autumn of 2002, the Angel Coalition has taken part in the development, together with the State Duma, of the first laws in the Russian Federation against human trafficking. The Angel Coalition was a member of a working team that has come before the Duma since December of 2002 and continues to pursue the issue of the acceptance and passing of a law against human trafficking. In December of 2004, a representative of the Coalition joined a revamped working team whose goal was to complete the preparations for the acceptance of such a law in 2005-2006.

(3) Legislative initiatives in the fight against human trafficking – the regional level:

The Angel Coalition is a current adviser to the Moscow city council on matters of human trafficking, prostitution, and women’s well-being.

(4) Training in legislative lobbying:

In May of 2003, the Angel Coalition received funding from the Matra/KAP fund (Netherlands) to hold a training conference in legislative lobbying for 32 of its members. For the conference, the Coalition prepared a packet of corresponding materials for how to work with lawmaking delegates and how to prepare graphic materials for application at the regional level. Participants were instructed on lawmaking technique by the Moscow office of the Angel Coalition and governmental experts, including members of the federal Duma’s Committee on Lawmaking, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Labor, and the Moscow city council. During the course of 2004-2005, the Angel Coalition conducted a series of five regional deliberations at the highest levels in the cities of Petrozavodsk, St. Petersburg, Murmansk, Kazan, and Yaroslavl, in which over 400 people participated—predominantly government representatives and members of law enforcement agencies. At the current time the Center for Aid to Human Trafficking Victims is carrying out work with the Ministry of the Interior to prepare teaching materials for students of the Ministry’s educational institutions.

(5) Work with embassies:

From April 2001 to the present date the Angel Coalition has been actively carrying out training in the prevention of human trafficking for embassy workers in Moscow and St. Petersburg. The Coalition offers a two-day training course which includes thorough coverage of the situation in relation to Russia and techniques to identify potential victims among the people submitting documents at visa offices, as well as among tourist groups traveling in Europe. Training sessions have already been held in the embassies of the following countries: Switzerland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Great Britain, and Finland.

(6) Educational exchange with European organizations:

In April of 2003, the Angel Coalition financed an international exchange for employees of the regional shelters. They were able to observe with their own eyes the practices of nine shelters in Europe and undergo training from their European colleagues who already have experience working with Russian victims of human trafficking. A year later, in April of 2004, with support from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), the Coalition started jointly with the Swedish organization “Kvinneforum” a project designed to help the work of the Center for Aid to Human Trafficking Victims and the regional shelters by means of training sessions and educational programs in Sweden and subsequent conferences and training sessions at the highest governmental level in each region of the Russian Federation where the shelters are located. From August 2004 through April 2005, five cities took part in these conferences: St. Petersburg, Petrozavodsk, Murmansk, Kazan, and Yaroslavl. In the future three more cities will be included. European specialists carried out work with shelters and legislative and administrative departments with the goal of developing mechanisms for repatriation and rehabilitation of victims of human trafficking. “Kvinneforum” established a database of human trafficking prevention and victim aid organizations in the Baltic region, while the Angel Coalition set up a database for Russia. As part of these activities the databases will be united and given out to all similar organizations across Scandinavia.

(7) Preventive measures among groups likely to be at risk:

In 2003 the Angel Coalition received a small grant from the Moscow city government for interactive puppet shows for schoolgirls ages 15-16; the shows included full length puppets. The goal was to demonstrate the ways in which slave traders attract their victims and to inform the students about the danger of human trafficking. Before the show, the schoolgirls filled out questionnaires on the theme of their future and the possibility of working abroad, and after the presentation they filled out different questionnaires to assess the impact of the program as an educational tool.

(8) Development of rehabilitation protocol:

In May of 2003, Russian experts who took part in an international exchange program gathered in Moscow to formulate the first “Protocol for Help to Victims of Human Trafficking” project, which would determine the procedures for rehabilitation of victims and the functioning of shelters in Russia. The Moscow city council, the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Labor, and the federal Duma’s Committee on Lawmaking took part in the preparation of the Protocol and accepted it as part of a general plan to help victims at the federal and Moscow-governmental levels. The second protocol project was discussed and worked out in the course of a conference of representatives in Moscow from the 17^th through the 20^th of May, 2005. Additionally, in 2004 the Angel Coalition produced the “Protocol of Joint Action Between Government Agencies and Nongovernmental Organizations of the Russian Federation in the Fight Against the Trafficking of Women and Children,” proposed by us as a recommendation to the Russian government on the counteracting of human trafficking in Russia.

(9) Informational campaigns in the mass media:

The Angel Coalition made itself known in the intra-Russian arena for the first time in 2001 in the course of an inter-regional informational campaign in six cities belonging to the European part of Russia, including Moscow. At that very time the Russian public found out about the scope and scale of the human trafficking problem. Smaller-scaled actions followed. For example, in 2003, financed by SIDA, the Angel Coalition conducted a Russian-Swedish informational campaign along the border between Sweden and the Murmansk region. The campaign progressed in cooperation with the Swedish organization ROKS and included public events and spreading of information through the mass media. The target audience became educational institutions, employment agencies, tourism agencies, children’s homes, youth clubs and government agencies. We also have international experience in this area: in 2003 we participated as trainer-experts (together with the American charitable association “The MiraMed Institute”) in the preparation of large-scale informational campaigns in the city of Yassi (Romania).

(10) Free international hotline:

In October of 2004 the first hotline of its type was set up to improve mechanisms of cooperation for more effective rescue and repatriation of Russian citizens who have fallen into slavery (primarily sexual) abroad. In the first stage were included three European countries known for the complexity of their situations with human trafficking: Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium, as well as (shortly thereafter) the USA. To distribute information about the project and business cards serving as the main carrier of information for the target groups, members of the Coalition visited two out of the three original countries—the Netherlands and Germany—in February of 2005. The project received a positive response from the NGOs and government organizations of these countries.

(11 ) International operations:

To spread the word about the Angel Coalition’s activities on the international level, its workers have visited a series of countries such as Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Sweden, and Spain. In April of 2004 a representative of the Coalition appeared at the session of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, noting activities of Russian NGOs to counteract sexual trafficking. One additional significant event was the Coalition’s participation in a prominent conference in Italy to which the Coalition was invited by a representative of IOM Brussels. The Coalition there had the chance to represent Russian public organizations and take part in the experience of rescue, repatriation, and rehabilitation. Since 2004, the United Nations has known of the Coalition well. And as a result of our activities together with our partners, effective strategic relations have been founded with international organizations, governments, and embassies

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