The Centre has a team of social workers who identify and address the needs of the beneficiaries, and a case manager is assigned to each beneficiary to ensure good coordination and individualistic approach. The beneficiaries are provided with temporary accommodation, food, clothes, dishes, blankets, pillows, hygienic packages, and other items when necessary. Especially after an urgent rescue and repatriation operation the beneficiaries often lack even the most basic necessities. The program offers activities aimed at developing life-skills such as household economics, time management and personal budgeting. Upon departure from the Centre, together with the case manager, beneficiaries develop a reintegration plan that is specifically tailored to each person. Reintegration plans are designed to empower the beneficiary as they begin a new chapter in their life by covering particular needs; the addressed needs vary from kindergarten fees, vocational training fees to monthly meal subsidy, from construction and repairing materials for a dilapidated dwelling to heating fuel for the winter, and additional support when needed.
Natalia, 33, was offered domestic work in a private house in Turkey by a friend of her partner. In May 2006, she flew to Istanbul where she was met at the airport by two men who took her to a village and forced her to provide sexual services. She was eventually discovered during a police raid and was arrested.
She returned home without documents, which a local NGO, together with IOM, helped her to obtain. She was also desperately in need of basic things such as food and toiletries, furniture, cookware, hygiene items, and clothes for her and her son, now 7 years old and in the 1st grade. Utility bills were also paid and she received a television.
Natalia will need assistance for some time to come to cope with what has happened to her. However, what she has already received through the assistance of this program will allow her and her son to begin to rebuild an independent life while she works with social assistants to plan her future. The organization is also working to replace the documents Natalia lost abroad, without which she cannot find work. Once the documents are obtained, Natalia plans to earn money and to no longer be dependent upon outside help.
A donation of $250 will buy clothes and shoes for a victim like Natalia, who has lost everything
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All photos credit: © Dana Popa
Disclaimer: The names in these stories have been changed to protect the identities of IOM beneficiaries. The people appearing in these photographs are IOM beneficiaries, but not the individuals mentioned in these stories.
