Representatives of the NGO Mladiinfo Montenegro attended a panel discussion on the role of transnational organized crime in corruption, on December 16, 2020 through the Zoom platform.
Lucia Bird from the Global Initiative spoke about the role of women and men in organized crime, while the greater focus was on women.
“It is believed that some women are not passive observers in organized crime activities, but they play the role of agents,” said Lucia Bird.
She pointed out that women are most often used as couriers who convey messages, because they are less researched by law enforcement agencies.
“Women are also used as a means of negotiation,” Lucia pointed out.
“When we start dealing with resilience to organized crime and defining what it actually means, it is the ability of the community to respond to organized crime while maintaining functional capacity,” Lucia said.
During the panel discussion, Juan Camilo Cock from the Alvaralice Foundation also spoke about how civil society organizations can be better engaged in cooperating with the authorities in the areas in which they work.
“We are primarily working on programs to combat violence, primarily with young people. We are a small non-governmental organization, we work in Cali, which is the third largest city in Colombia, which has about two million inhabitants. The city where we work has a high level of violence and a lot of murders are happening”, said Juan Camilo Cock.
He emphasized that in Cali, according to the investigation of murders from 2018, there were: 92% in public space, 41% of victims were younger than 24, 26% in fights, 43% in retaliation, while 41% were in the most violent parts of town.
Juan Camilo also spoke about the benefits of civil society organizations.
Juan pointed out that the advantages of civil society organizations are as follows: they have the trust of communities that often do not trust the state police, stronger roots in local communities, especially in social organizations, less stability than the state, but more stability than individual governments, can be more innovative and adaptable than the government.
The director of the CD Institute from Albania, Krisela Hackaj, addressed the panel discussion and spoke about how civil society works in Albania.
“We have 11 thousand registered organizations, but only about two thousand are economically active”, said Krisela Hackaj.
At the end of the panel discussion, the Secretary General for the National Committee in the Chamber of Commerce in Albania, Ardita Seknaj, spoke a little more about the organization where she works, and about their cooperation with the government.
“We have three levels on which we have built our cooperation with the government. The first is standard and it is about advocating policies, the second is a market solution for the private sector and the third is awareness raising campaigns”, said Ardita Seknaj.
At the end of the panel discussion, the participants presented their opinions based on the presented presentations.
