Humanitarian Assistance and Protection

Promoting long-term and protection-sensitive approach to the mixed migration response is a critical priority of IOM in Montenegro. IOM continues to promote access to rights-based and life-saving assistance. In 2020, through a regional project, IOM assisted the Ministry of Interior to finalize the construction and furnishing of Božaj Reception Center.

IOM’s mobile team continues to provide humanitarian assistance and protection to migrants and, together with partners, supply a wide range of services (WASH, psychological support, transportation, and protection assistance) in Temporary Reception Center Božaj, in line with international standards and meeting basic needs of those accommodated.

IOM’s support is focused on building capacities of authorities in migration crisis management and preparedness, providing technical support and tools to authorities in protection-sensitive and humanitarian border management. IOM contributes to building institutional capacities to screen, register, refer and assist vulnerable persons within the mixed migratory flows.

Projects and Donors

Western Balkans joint actions against smuggling of migrants and trafficking in human beings

The overall objective of the intervention is to contribute to better migration management of mixed migration flows in the Western Balkans (WB) through strengthening effective counter-smuggling and counter-human trafficking practices. The increasingly complex mixed migration dynamics in the WB, coupled with the operational challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic since the beginning of 2020, have revealed important institutional needs and gaps in the field of border management, and in particular in the context of smuggling of migrants (SOM) and the trafficking in human beings (THB). These include the need to expand and strengthen regional cooperation and coordination, address the lack of interpretation services during investigations, bridge gaps in key stakeholders’ operational, technical, and strategic capacities at both regional and national levels, and support direct assistance to vulnerable categories. This project therefore builds its interventions around three outcomes: 

Regional cooperation and coordination amongst key actors in countering SOM and THB in the Western Balkans is enhanced at strategic and operational/technical level;  

Front line actors in the WB have enhanced human and technical capacities for proactive identification, protection, and assistance to victims of trafficking and smuggled migrants, as well as for enhanced criminal justice response to SOM and THB cases.  

Enhanced protection, direct assistance to and empowerment of vulnerable migrants and victims of trafficking following a rights-based and victim-sensitive approach. 

Donor: Ministry Of Foreign Affairs of Denmark