On May 24th, 2021, the SeRV project Portuguese team organized the webinar “Human Trafficking: the fight against the phenomenon and the challenges of the intervention with victims”. The webinar was an important opportunity to share knowledge about the subject, to think about the best practices conducted in Portugal, and what are the future steps to improve the protection and intervention with these victims.

We invited Dr. Manuel Albano (Vice president of CIG and National Rapporteur for Human Trafficking), Dr.ª Mara Clemente [Researcher at the Center for Research and Studies of Sociology of ISCTE – University Institute of Lisbon (ISCTE-IUL) and Associate Researcher of the Emigration Observatory (OEm)],  Dr.ª Marta Pereira (Supervisor of APF’s Specialized Multidisciplinary Teams for combat of Human Trafficking), and Dr.ª Ana Figueiredo (coordinator of “Mercadoria Humana” projects that aim prevent and raise awareness about Human Trafficking – Saúde em Português) as our main speakers.

We also had the pleasure of welcoming many participants, such as professionals from different areas, organizations and students.

The SeRV project – “Services and Rights for Victims of Crime” is funded by the European Commission (JUST-AG-2018/JUST-JACC-AG-2018/847356). The project involves six countries of EU (Portugal, Estonia, Germany, Italy, Romania and Spain), and aims to improve the understanding of victims’ support services (VSS) provision, challenges and opportunities; to promote networking and referral agreements with entities; to increase stakeholder awareness about the best VSS provision and interorganizational cooperation; and finally, to facilitate transnational exchange between VSS to support knowledge exchange and cooperation.

In Portugal, the project is coordinated by FEP-UCP lecturers and researchers Catarina Ribeiro and Mariana Barbosa. The national team also includes the lecturer, researcher, and Dean of FEP-UCP, Raquel Matos, and the researcher Mafalda Santos.

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