17 January 2006 - Head of the humanitarian cooperation and human rights department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Belarus Elena Kupchina made a statement at the UNICEF Executive Board session at the UN headquarters in New York in which she pointed out the UNICEF broader involvement in the sphere of the fight against trafficking in people, particularly children. She expressed gratitude to the leadership of the Fund for the support of Belarus’ initiative on this issue.

“Belarus highly appreciates the readiness expressed by the Fund leadership to promote the implementation of Belarus’ initiative on establishing under the UN aegis of a global “Partnership Against Slavery and Human Trafficking in the 21th century” set forth at the UN High-Level Meeting last year. The Belarusian initiative fully confirms with the priorities highlighted in the UNICEF middle-term strategic plan, in particular, protecting children from violence, exploitation and brute treatment”, stated the Belarus representative.

As Elena Kupchina informed, the fruitful cooperation between Belarus and UNICEF had resulted last year in the joint elaboration of the Fund draft programme of action for Belarus for 2006-2010 which not only covers the traditional cooperation issues of children’s development and health, but also contains new elements acute for Belarus.

In particular, the MFA official underlined that the programme of action is mainly targeted at securing the interests of handicapped children, developing a post-orphanage rehabilitation system for orphans and children living out of their parents’ care, and preventing trafficking in kids. Special attention is given to health and social security of children living on the Chernobyl affected territories. The UNICEF Executive Board at its current session is likely to approve allocation of 5.5 million US dollars to the implementation of the programme of action for Belarus.

Elena Kupchina expressed hope that the Fund would make its contribution to conducting an international conference on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster scheduled for April 2006 in Minsk.

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