On 13 December 2024, the « Guidelines for Labour Inspection Services in addressing Trafficking in Persons for the purpose of labour exploitation in Ethiopia », developed with the support of CIVIPOL under the BMM programme, were officially endorsed by the Ethiopian Ministry of Labour and Skills and the Ministry of Justice during a ceremony attended by their high representatives. The BMM Programme is co-funded by the European Union and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).
This innovative and needed initiative was widely praised by participants, including anti-trafficking Civil Society Organisations or the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission and it represents another milestone in multi-stakeholder anti-trafficking and victim protection efforts which are being carried out in Ethiopia and in the Region. These guidelines, available in English and Amharic, were developed in collaboration with relevant implementing partners through a participative process led by Peter Von Hauwermeiren, international expert on labour trafficking. They represent a comprehensive tool for the labour inspectors to detect trafficking situations in work places and consequently collaborate with police and prosecutors to bring the perpetrators to justice, and simultaneously identify and refer the victims to assistance.
Throughout their deployment, the BMM programme, represented in particular by Yibeltal Walelign, National Coordinator for Ethiopia, and Marco Bufo, Regional Coordinator and Team Leader, assisted Ethiopia by organising workshops and Multi-Agency Task Force in order to obtain guidelines as close as possible to the country's needs. Wishing to extend this progress to the whole region, the BMM programme led by CIVIPOL, one of the programme's implementing partners, has undertaken to develop a Training Curriculum, to be piloted through a regional Training of Trainers, which will subsequently enable the trainers to transpose the curriculum in their respective countries.
