Osce: daily updates

- OSCE/ODIHR opens mission to assess parliamentary elections in the Netherlands

WARSAW, 26 May 2010 - The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) today opened an election assessment mission for the early parliamentary elections to be held in the Netherlands on 9 June.

The mission’s deployment follows an invitation from the Foreign Ministry of the Netherlands. As a participating State of the OSCE, the Netherlands has committed to invite ODIHR to observe its elections.

The mission, led by Jonathan Stonestreet, comprises 12 international election experts from 10 OSCE participating States. The team will be based in The Hague but will deploy experts to other areas of the Netherlands.

The experts will assess and report on the overall framework for the conduct of the elections. They will focus on issues including the election legislation, the impact of the decision to end the use of electronic voting machines and campaign financing.

As part of the assessment process, the experts will meet relevant governmental authorities, election administration, candidates, political parties, the judiciary, civil society and the media.

ODIHR will not carry out systematic or comprehensive observation of the voting, counting, or tabulation on election day, but the experts plan to visit a limited number of polling stations across the country to follow election day procedures.

A final report will be issued about two months after the completion of the election process.

ODIHR also assessed the 2006 parliamentary elections in the Netherlands.

Direct link to the press release

- Manual on combating human trafficking for law-enforcement agencies in Armenia launched with OSCE support

YEREVAN, 26 May 2010 - A training manual on combating human trafficking for Armenian law enforcement officials, labour inspectors and the judiciary, developed with the support of the International Labour Organization, the OSCE and the UN Development Programme (UNDP) was presented today.

The manual examines international and national legal frameworks, methods of prevention and victim protection, challenges in investigating and prosecuting trafficking cases and referral mechanisms, and will be used for training prosecutors, police, judges, border guards and labour inspectors.

It was prepared by three local experts - Ara Yeremyan from the Armenian Ministry of Justice, David Tumasyan from the OSCE-supported Anti-trafficking Support and Resource Unit and Geghetsik Grigoryan from the State University of Economics.

"Better co-ordinated and sustainable training for Armenian agencies to effectively implement the anti-trafficking legislation that the country has recently put in place is a priority. For this purpose, the OSCE Office has contributed to the development of a locally-owned and managed training programme that will serve the needs of all Armenian bodies responsible for the prevention and prosecution of human trafficking and the protection of victims," said Carel Hofstra, the Deputy Head of the OSCE Office in Yerevan.

Alla Bakunts, Democratic Governance Portfolio Analyst from UNDP Armenia, said: "This nationally-owned training manual is a living document and we hope that over time it will be enriched with the inputs and contributions from the practitioners, and will be updated and adjusted appropriately in order to reflect the newly emerging needs and requirements of the audience."

Deputy Justice Minister of Justice Emil Babayan emphasized the importance of strengthening the capacity of national stakeholders to combat trafficking at the manual launch, which was attended by representatives of international, state and civil society organizations.

The manual was developed as part of an EU-funded project on "Development of a Comprehensive Anti-trafficking Response in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia", and a UNDP project with funding from the Government of Norway.

Direct link to the press release