PREVENTION
The government sustained efforts to prevent human trafficking. It provided FCFA 30,000,000 ($50,000) in funding to the national taskforce in 2014, which is a significant decrease from the 2013 budget of FCFA 50,000,000 ($100,000). In October 2014, in partnership with international organizations and NGOs, the anti- trafficking taskforce sponsored an awareness program on forced child begging in Kolda, targeting children, parents, and marabouts. During this reporting period, it also presented the daara mapping project for the Dakar region, an initiative conducted in partnership with foreign donors, to examine the magnitude of forced child begging and establish baseline information from which to track progress in addressing this crime. In January 2015, the taskforce completed design of a national trafficking database; however, it was unclear how officials plan to implement and train officials on its proper use.The Ministry of Education drafted a law to regulate

and modernize daaras and conducted public outreach to advocate for this daara modernization; however, this law was not approved by Parliament at the close of the reporting period. Despite these efforts, exploitation and abuse of talibes continued to occur on a large scale, and the government did not fund or make significant efforts to implement the national action plan on child begging.
Approximately 70 percent of Senegal’s economy operated in the informal sector, where most forced child labor occurred; however, there was no evidence that the Ministry of Labor made efforts to regulate this sector. The government made efforts to decrease the demand for forced labor or commercial sex acts in the mining sector through the closure of artisanal mining sites in southeastern Senegal. The government did not provide anti- trafficking training to Senegalese troops before their deployment abroad on international peacekeeping missions.The government did not provide anti-trafficking training for its diplomatic personnel.

SERBIA: Tier 2 
Serbia is a source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to sex trafficking and forced labor, including domestic servitude and forced begging. Serbian women are subjected to sex trafficking by Serbian criminal groups in Russia, neighboring countries, and throughout Europe, particularly Italy, Germany, and Switzerland. Serbian nationals, particularly men, are subjected to labor trafficking in labor-intensive sectors, such as the construction industry, in European countries (including Azerbaijan, Slovenia, and Russia) and the United Arab Emirates. Serbian children, particularly ethnic Roma, are subjected within the country to sex trafficking, forced labor, forced begging, and petty crime, often by family members. Foreign victims of trafficking in Serbia are from neighboring countries including Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Romania, and Moldova. Bribery reportedly influences some trafficking cases.
The Government of Serbia does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so. Victim identification significantly increased, particularly of forced labor victims, though victim care suffered from the absence of government procedures to refer victims to NGO service providers and a lack of training for social welfare center staff on trafficking victim assistance. Fewer traffickers were convicted, and those that were received weak sentences. The government did not afford victims sufficient protection in criminal proceedings, which exposed them to intimidation and secondary  traumatization.

RECOMMENDATIONS  FOR SERBIA:
Increase prosecutions and obtain convictions of traffickers with dissuasive sentences; train investigators, prosecutors, and judges on victim-centered approaches to trafficking cases; provide victims testifying in court with the full range of available protections to

diminish intimidation and re-traumatization; enshrine in law non- penalization of victims for acts committed as a direct result of their being subjected to human trafficking; improve cooperation with NGOs on victim referral and increase funding for NGOs providing reintegration services; improve training for government personnel on victim assistance and referral; increase efforts to identify victims among asylum seekers and unaccompanied children engaged in street begging; adopt the national anti-trafficking strategy and action plan and involve NGOs in implementation; strengthen efforts to discourage demand for services of trafficked persons; and elevate the national coordinator to a full-time position with independent authority.

PROSECUTION
The government demonstrated mixed law enforcement efforts. Article 388 of the Serbian criminal code prohibits all forms of trafficking, prescribing penalties ranging from three to 15 years’ imprisonment.These penalties are sufficiently stringent and commensurate with those prescribed for other serious crimes, such as rape. The government investigated 55 cases in 2014, including 35 cases of commercial sexual exploitation and 20 cases of forced labor, compared with 30 cases involving 63 suspected traffickers in 2013. In 2014, the government initiated prosecutions of 17 cases involving 25 defendants under Article 388, compared with 29 trafficking cases in 2013. Courts convicted 26 traffickers in 2014, a decrease from 37 convicted in 2013. Sentences ranged between three and 12 years’ imprisonment.The government did not disaggregate data on convictions for sex and labor trafficking crimes. Trials were lengthy, and the appeals process frequently resulted in the reduction of prison sentences. Observers reported the government did not adequately implement anti-trafficking laws, and prosecutors often chose to prosecute trafficking crimes under other statutes with lesser penalties that were easier to prosecute. Both the organized crime police and border police forces had specialized anti-trafficking units. Each police directorate in Serbia had an anti-trafficking unit; seventeen directorates also had multidisciplinary anti-trafficking teams that included prosecutors, social workers, and health officials.The government, in coordination with NGOs and international organizations, provided training to police, prosecutors, judges, and consular and border officials on recognizing, investigating, and prosecuting trafficking cases, as well as on victim identification and referral. The government did not report any investigations, prosecutions, or convictions of government officials complicit in human trafficking offenses. An NGO reported it was offered money by a defendant in a trafficking case to drop its involvement in that case and suspected the judge was accepting money from the defendant.

PROTECTION
The government improved identification of trafficking victims, but victim assistance and protection were deficient. Authorities identified 119 trafficking victims in 2014, compared with 76 in 2013. Ninety-eight victims were subjected to forced labor, 16 for sex trafficking, three for forced begging, and two for forced criminality. Authorities referred only eight of the 119 identified victims to NGO service providers, which they attributed to a decrease in victims’ needs and the availability of assistance at government- run social welfare centers. However, observers asserted victims should have been referred to NGOs in much larger numbers because social welfare centers lacked specialized programs and skills to work with trafficking victims and lacked the ability to remove children from their families, even if there was evidence