Na Wa Film Festival in Vienna: Raising Awareness on Fighting Human Trafficking

The awareness-raising Film Festival on fighting human trafficking took place from 1-2 December 2011 in Vienna in the framework of the EU-funded project "Enhancing multi-stakeholder cooperation against trafficking in human beings in countries of origin and destination".

“Often when they go they think they are going to be models, teachers, nannies or football stars only for them to receive the shock of their lives and find themselves in brothels forced to have sex with more than 30 people a day or performing the most dirty, degrading, or dangerous jobs in some sweaty, horrible dungeon with no possibility for escape or even contact with their families.” Aondoaver A. Kuttuh – NAPTIP Nigeria

The “Na Wa” Film Festival featured informative old and new feature films, documentaries, and literature depicting the stories of Nigerians who were trafficked to Europe for sexual or labour exploitation.

The interactive two-day awareness raising festival took place in cooperation with the Austrian Film Festival “thishumanworld”. The festival featured film screenings, book readings, panel discussions, press conferences and networking receptions. Participants included high-level delegates from Nigeria and from six participating European countries: Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, as well as government officials, policy makers, law enforcement officials, members of the judiciary and international film makers.

The festival, which was funded by the European Union, was organized by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the non-governmental organization EXIT within the framework of the United Nations Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking (UN.GIFT).