The seminar was organized by the OSCE Centre in Ashgabat in co-operation with the Foreign Ministry and the Interior Ministry of Turkmenistan.

During the seminar, 25 representatives from the General Prosecutors’ Office, the Interior Ministry, the National Security Service, the State Border Service and the State Migration Service discussed how law-enforcement activities can contribute to combating trafficking. Among the participants were also five teachers from the Police Academy.

"Combating human trafficking as an abhorrent violation of the individual dignity and rights is at the core of the commitments all OSCE participating States have undertaken," said Ambassador Arsim Zekolli, Head of the OSCE Centre in Ashgabat. "This seminar aimed to assist Turkmenistan authorities in their efforts to strengthen the capacity of law-enforcement bodies to prevent and combat human trafficking, and emphasized the need to ensure the safety and immediate well-being of possible victims of trafficking."

The OSCE Strategic Police Matters Unit, Interpol and Europol representatives spoke about the role of law-enforcement bodies in combating human trafficking and discussed concrete cases of trafficking for labor and sexual exploitation. The international standards as well as Turkmenistan’s anti-trafficking legislation were discussed. Speakers reviewed the human trafficking situation in Romania and Ukraine, including national legislation, current trends, specific means and methods used by organized criminal groups and practices applied by law-enforcement bodies to combat the crime.

As part of its support to the law-enforcement bodies of Turkmenistan, the Centre provided the Police Academy with a wide range of publications on human rights to be used both by teachers and students in the future.

The event followed a high-level seminar on human trafficking organized by the Centre in co-operation with the Foreign Ministry in August 2009.