On Wednesday, October 21, Ambassador Pamela Spratlen and Tashkent Deputy Hokim, Farida Abdurakhimova, inaugurated a USAID funded Training Center for Socially Vulnerable Women. Both speakers wore blue as a symbol of human trafficking and sex slavery awareness. Ambassador Spratlen pointed out that “working together with government and non-government actors, we strive to abolish this injustice by supporting a Training Center that will provide on-demand job skills training for women and girls from socially disadvantaged families as well as survivors of human trafficking.”
Officials from district hokimiats, the Uzbek Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Inter-Agency Commission on Combating Trafficking in Persons and mahalla (local neighborhood community) members attended the ceremony. The guests had a chance to tour the Center funded by the USAID Reintegration for Trafficking Survivors Project, implemented by Istiqbolli Avlod, and talk to women who will benefit from the training. The main beneficiaries of the Training Center will be survivors of human trafficking. The Center will reduce the risk of victims’ exposure to trafficking by providing a variety of job training, including: sewing, cooking, cosmetology, and computer literacy skills. USAID provided $36,000 to equip the Training Center.
