More than 5.6 million people have fled Ukraine since Russia\u2019s invasion. The experience of financial insecurity \u2013 due to unemployment, a loss of income, and limited access to financial resources \u2013 and the desperate search for food and shelter have left many vulnerable to the risks of human trafficking and modern slavery. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Financial exclusion is widely recognized as a risk multiplier for modern slavery. Displaced people often face barriers accessing financial services, the main one being a lack of identification to open bank accounts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mobilizing the financial sector<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n To mitigate these risks, the UN\u2019s Inter-Agency Coordination Group Against Trafficking in Persons (ICAT) launched a call to action in December 2022. The call stressed the importance of engaging the financial sector in identifying and addressing slavery and trafficking in crisis and conflict, and enabling financial inclusion for affected populations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finance Against Slavery and Trafficking (FAST), an initiative hosted by the United Nations University Centre for Policy Research (UNU-CPR), has broad experience extending financial inclusion to vulnerable people exposed to the risks of modern slavery and human trafficking \u2013 experience that is now being applied to displaced Ukrainians. <\/p>\n\n\n\n FAST\u2019s Survivor Inclusion Initiative (SII) helps survivors of modern slavery open bank accounts and works with banks to adapt \u2018know your customer\u2019 due diligence processes. Participating banks understand survivors may not have access to regular identification documents, and therefore accept other types of official documents to validate the survivor\u2019s identity and meet their legal obligations. The initiative has helped 2000 survivors open bank accounts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Supporting displaced Ukrainians<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n When the European Union Temporary Protection Directive (TPD) came into force in 2001, it enshrined protection for displaced people and secured their access to a bank account. It allows Ukrainian refugees to open bank accounts in 27 EU member states with simplified due diligence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n FAST supported the European Banking Authority (EBA) to proactively communicate the TPD provisions and guidance to banks. The guidance encourages banks to rely on alternative identification documents or postpone customer identification measures. In countries outside of the EU, such as the UK, some banks have adopted their own simplification processes. HSBC UK, for example, used the SII expertise to open over 8,000 accounts for Ukrainian refugees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With access to, and usage of affordable banking services, displaced people exposed to the risk of modern slavery and human trafficking can strengthen their financial resilience and independence. This is not the first effort to address the financial inclusion needs of people displaced by war and crisis. But the scale of the response is impressive. Learning and applying its lessons could extend support to millions more displaced people worldwide.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" More than 5.6 million people have fled Ukraine since Russia\u2019s invasion. The experience of financial insecurity \u2013 due to unemployment, a loss of income, and limited access to financial resources \u2013 and the desperate search for food and shelter have left many vulnerable to the risks of human trafficking and modern slavery. Financial exclusion … Securing financial inclusion for displaced Ukrainians<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":918,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":""},"categories":[111],"tags":[],"issue":[131],"acf":[],"author_meta":{"display_name":"\u00e0 propos","author_link":"https:\/\/koff.swisspeace.ch\/apropos\/author\/apropos\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/koff.swisspeace.ch\/apropos\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/UN7934417__MGW6004_Standard-600x400.jpg","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["Reports<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Reports<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":0,"relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 4 years ago","modified":"Updated 3 years ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on February 16, 2023","modified":"Updated on February 8, 2024"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on February 16, 2023 2:54 pm","modified":"Updated on February 8, 2024 7:59 am"},"featured_img_caption":"Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres (second from right) visits a refugee centre in Chi\u0219in\u0103u, in the Republic of Moldova, run with the support of UN agencies. In the centre refugees can find a temporary place to stay, access services such as legal assistance and medical support, have a hot meal or register for cash assistance. During the visit, the Secretary-General met with a number of families who are housed there or just using the services provided by the centre. \nMoldova has, within the last months, taken in almost half a million Ukrainian refugees fleeing the war.","series_order":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/koff.swisspeace.ch\/apropos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/koff.swisspeace.ch\/apropos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/koff.swisspeace.ch\/apropos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koff.swisspeace.ch\/apropos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koff.swisspeace.ch\/apropos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=652"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/koff.swisspeace.ch\/apropos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3179,"href":"https:\/\/koff.swisspeace.ch\/apropos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652\/revisions\/3179"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koff.swisspeace.ch\/apropos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/koff.swisspeace.ch\/apropos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koff.swisspeace.ch\/apropos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koff.swisspeace.ch\/apropos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=652"},{"taxonomy":"issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koff.swisspeace.ch\/apropos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue?post=652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}