Padova, October 18: #Padovanontratta, eighteenth European Awareness Day against Human Trafficking.

It was celebrated on October 18th the eighteenth European Day Against Human Trafficking, established in 2006 by the European Commission to inform and raise awareness about this phenomenon often invisible that affects women, men and minors. In Italy, for over 20 years, there has been a national anti-trafficking network, established by the Department for Equal Opportunities, which currently consists of 21 Projects.

Il Municipality of Padua has joined the Day as an implementing body, together with other partners, of the NAVIGARe project which represents a unique and integrated system for the emergence and assistance of victims of trafficking and/or serious exploitation, active 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. A project capable of guaranteeing access to rights to people emerging in the regional territory, regardless of their legal status, age, nationality, gender and type of exploitation, sexual, labor, forced begging, forced criminal activities, arranged or forced marriages.

In the Padua area, from 1 October 2022 to 31 August 2024, the NA.VIGARe project contacted 112 people on the street, 552 indoors, 385 were contacted during work accesses in the workplace with the inspection agencies, 22 people were taken in charge and included in a protection program, 236 were followed with proximity interventions that aim to empower the person and provide support for exiting from a condition of marginalization.

"Yesterday's was an important event to inform citizens about what human trafficking is. - comments the councilor for social affairs, Margherita Colonnello - a concept far from everyday reality, which seems not to belong. On the contrary, human trafficking and serious exploitation continue to violate the human rights of thousands of women, men and transsexual people, in Italy, as well as in other European countries and the rest of the world. From prostitution, to violence, to work in slave-like conditions, from begging, to criminal markets, from aiding illegal immigration, to forced marriages, to organ trafficking, they are all realities that produce victims. Having shared and joined this Day – the councilor concludes – it is a concrete message that looks at the social and psychological recovery of people who are recruited by traffickers through violence or deception and then find themselves trapped in situations from which it is truly difficult to escape".

Below are the initiatives organized for today, Saturday 19 October in Gasparotto square:
17.00 - 21.00 XVIII European Day Against Trafficking and The Homeless Night 2024
18:00 pm Talk “The health of vulnerable people from needs to responses”
19:30 pm Talk “Beyond simplifications: LGBT+ homeless people. Challenges, intersections and horizons of complexity”. During the talk, the short film “RI-Belle” by Maria Desiderio and Valeria Fabris, the result of the LET laboratory – Transfeminine Emotions Laboratory, introduced by professionals3 of the NAVIGARe Project, will be screened
In the afternoon: “Living and coexisting Experiments in Image Theatre”

Access free and free to all the initiatives scheduled.