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KOK - German NGO Network against Trafficking in Human Beings is a member of GAATW in Germany. Srishty Anand from the GAATW Secretariat conducted this interview with Sophia Wirsching, Executive Director, in July 2022 to learn more about KOK’s work.

Srishty Anand: Thank you, Sophia, for taking the time to speak with me. Let’s start with some history. I saw that KOK was formed in 1999. What was the motivation for its establishment and how has it evolved over the period?

Sophia Wirsching: I joined KOK in 2018. The organisation and the network were built by my predecessor. Our members are counselling centres and other NGOs that work against trafficking. Some members are lobby organisations, but most of them offer counselling services for women and other people who are affected by trafficking. But back in the 1980s, and 1990s German groups and small associations, mostly related to the church, became aware of German men going to Asia and returning with Asian wives, or marrying ‘mail order brides’. Many of these Asian women were exploited. Counselling centres emerged to assist women who were confronted with various problems such as lack of residence status, the threat of deportation, isolation, physical and psychological distress, debts, threats and violence from husbands or traffickers, and so on.

Before KOK came about, there was already some networking between different organisations in the form of ‘agisra’ network meetings. Agisra is an initiative for women that started in Cologne. It aims to support women facing various problems such as those mentioned above, and to increase migrant women’s self-awareness and to help them to organize. These meetings were incredibly valuable in the 1980s as it was the only forum in which professionals in the field could share their views and experiences. The meetings were attended by colleagues from counselling centres that sometimes differed greatly from one another. However, what brought everyone together was this new phenomenon that was unlike anything previously experienced, defying existing counselling approaches and definitions. Furthermore, as prostitution in Germany was legalised in 2000, there was a need for organisations to assist sex workers in circumstances of forced labour. There was a clear need to set up a network. It was like a movement, but a grassroots movement, not a top-down one: a critical movement with a shared goal. This sense of shared approach still shapes KOK today and makes it what it is. Eventually, the networking meetings became increasingly institutionalised, and KOK was founded.

Germany is a federal state. The Federal government only provides a legal framework which grants trafficked persons benefits under social welfare legislation (i.e. the Asylum-Seekers Benefits Act, the Social Code, Part II and Part XII) to ensure their means of subsistence. Creating, funding and organising accommodation, however, falls under the remit of the different regions and municipalities and can vary widely in practice. In most regions, the specialised counselling centres receive funding from the region and/or municipalities. See our 2017 study on accommodation of trafficked persons in Germany.

So most of the counselling centres were facing problems such as ensuring adequate resources and financial support, searching shelters for those people, establishing contact with the prosecution authorities, and so on. There was a need for a body that would take up those structural and political issues and allow the counselling centres to concentrate on their work with clients. KOK is that body that represents those other fields of work. For over 20 years, KOK has been a powerful voice for specialised counselling centres through our work as an umbrella organisation, bringing about a wide range of effective and appropriate measures.

The counselling centres are engaged in dialogue with each other to learn about dealing with certain challenges, for instance, how to secure financial, structural, and administrative support and discuss issues such as assistance provision. They also support each other’s capacity enhancement. We are more or less a platform for stimulating dialogue.

Data collection in the context of trafficking In human beings and exploitation In Germany, 2021

SA: So, the counselling centres are at centre of your work?

SW: We represent the counselling centres and all our members at the national and European level and, in some cases, at the UN level. Our members work at the state level. We also have members’ assemblies twice a year. These meeting are like a sounding board where we discuss ideas about our work and check if it is meeting the needs and ideas of our members. Also, the KOK board is now comprised of four women who are actually working in counselling centres that are members. This is done to ensure that we are not losing touch with the practice and basis of our work.

SA: Are there any common principles that your members align to? What binds everyone together?

SW: First, there are certain criteria that a counselling centre should meet if they want to become a member. It is also required that a majority of the of the existing members must agree or vote in favour of a potential new member. I think one of our greatest achievements is the handbook or guidelines on standards of Social Work on cases of trafficking. It’s quite extensive and available only in German and exclusively for our members. These standards were developed together, and they allow for a clear positioning on the issue of trafficking. The book is used to enhance the competency of the staff working at the counselling centres. I'd say this is one common vision or our common ground for our work.

SA: Who do the counselling centres work with?

In the last couple of years, we also started using a common data collection software and in 2021, we published our first data report. In this report, there is some information about where the clients of our members come from.

The services are open to everyone, but most counselling centres, due to their feminist backgrounds and history, engage with women who have experienced sexual exploitation, or who have been forced to marry and other such vulnerable situations. They still have a mandate only to counsel women. But those women might come from anywhere. Mostly they are migrants or have migrant backgrounds. Germans are also a group of affected by trafficking but they don’t need the assistance of the counselling centres as much as the migrants because the latter lack language skills or information about their rights.

As for us, the KOK secretariat, we work with our members, international partners like La Strada International, and anti-trafficking actors in Germany. We train the police on victim identification and victims’ rights and needs because the focus of law enforcement agencies is usually on criminality. We also work a lot with politicians, parliamentarians, and specialised staff of ministries to advance the legal perspective and whole-of-society approach to the issue of how to prevent trafficking and how to support survivors.

Some of the counselling centres do this too but they have less capacity and resources for that. They ask us to offer training and workshops and we do that.

SA: How do the counsellors build rapport with clients?

SW: Counsellors have a professional background and not necessarily personal experience. I know there are some former victims who are employed in counselling centres, but it is not the standard or a recommendation when they are hired. Such employment history is private to protect the rights of the person. At the same time, there are also peer-to-peer projects where counsellors are appropriately matched with the client, for example, by migratory background. But even then, the counsellors do not necessarily have to be victims of trafficking. The police sometimes approach us and ask whether we are open to joint investigations where a former victim is accompanying the police in their operational work to build trust with potential victims more easily. But we have a very hesitant position towards that because it might also trigger traumatisation. It is putting a person at risk. So it's not standard that former victims are engaged in counselling centres on a professional basis.

There are a lot of people from migrant backgrounds in the counselling centres and they offer a great service, often in various languages. This is something the clients are also aware of. In certain areas we have more than one counselling centre, for instance, in Northern Westphalia we have four. Most counselling centres have a large pool of trusted matching services or translators.

SA: What is the geographical spread of your work and the counselling centres?

SW: We and our members are only in Germany, but we have three members outside of Germany although they are not allowed to vote as full members. One is in Italy because we have a lot of the so-called Dublin cases, when people are seeking asylum in Germany, but they were initially registered in Italy and the government sends them back to Italy. We also have a partner in Switzerland which is a GAATW member too. The other counselling centres in Europe are members of La Strada International and for KOK it is of interest to have more members to facilitate cooperation with countries where the incidence of international trafficking is high.

SA: Has the scope of your work changed recently with the political disruptions (Brexit, Ukraine war) in Europe?

SW: It’s hard to say. We have some general limitations in Germany. When it comes to trafficking, there is hardly any awareness of this topic in society. Brexit changed migration patterns in Europe a bit but not that we can see in our work, not any direct effects on trafficking. Some counselling centres were approached by migrants regarding potential consequences on British passport holders, how they would be treated in the European Union, how to obtain visas, etc. But this was not linked to any trafficking issues. Since we are not receiving any funds from donors in the UK, we were not affected by that either.

I think more important tendencies emerged after 2015, with the increase in refugees from Syria and Afghanistan. It became evident that policy and politics of deterrence create more human suffering and lead to an exploitative situation for migrants that might end up in trafficking situations.

We saw this during the pandemic too. Obviously, there were many challenges but offering services to clients during the lockdowns was hard to manage. Most of the counselling centres adapted well. They offered online counselling or found other ways to engage with their clients. It was much harder to reach the target groups and it remains hard. During the pandemic, traffickers went into the digital space. Before the pandemic started, sex workers could work in brothels or in bars and negotiate a sexual service. But this move to the internet and private locations like flats or apartments made it much harder to reach out to people and find out when and where there was a need for support and assistance.

We don’t have an analysis of how the situation has changed since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The receipt of migrants has been chaotic initially, but more welcoming than in the previous situations of increased migration. There was a lot of engagement right from the start regarding prevention campaigns. So, counselling centres would meet with police and other agencies to sensitise on the issue of trafficking and they designed flyers and other information materials to be displayed or shared with the arriving refugees. There were a lot of worrying tendencies in the beginning about whether exploitation and trafficking would take place, because there's also a lot of racist attitudes. But we don’t know enough right now - like how many refugees have arrived because the registration process started late and it will take a while before exploitation situations are reported.            

SA: Does the work of the counselling centres feed into KOK’s advocacy?

SW: Yes, very much. It is the basis of our work. For instance, my colleague who engages with refugees and asylum seekers published a small handout this week, it’s only in German. It contains a lot of examples from practice. The theoretical or policy advice that we give is enriched with real-life facts to make politicians and other partners understand the phenomena better. It is not enough to say we need rights-based approach; we need to highlight that there is a need for an actual person who has been sexually exploited to be sheltered. For example, Germany does not offer special shelters for trans or queer victims of trafficking and so we would zoom into a case where a counselling centre could not find a suitable space for a trans client. We always try to involve the practice as much as possible.

SA: I don’t have any other questions. Is there anything else you’d like to share about?

SW: Yes, we also conduct research and publish many reports. A few years ago, we did a small study on how trafficking is being framed by German media and we found that it was full of stereotypes. More recently, we published a small brochure on ritual and organised violence, which is a brutal phenomenon sometimes overlapping trafficking. And, like I said, on the topic of data collection, which is very current because Germany is about to set up a reporting mechanism so there is a need for data but not enough is available.

SA: Thank you so much for your time, Sophia.