The MIST: a specialized and innovative association
The Mist is a group of people who have been victims of procuring or trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation who mobilize to promote the identification of other victims, their protection, then their inclusion, in a process allowing them to enhance their experience. by helping other victims in turn.
This virtuous dynamic is based on a unique social intervention methodology developed with people who are victims of sexual exploitation. It aims to promote the creation of spaces allowing them to speak for themselves within an evolving framework, to empower themselves by taking part in the action and governance of the association, to work in favor of the production of recommendations, better access to rights for victims and the fight against the trivialization of violence or phenomena of influence within peer groups.
Created in January 2020 by a multidisciplinary team of professionals already experienced in the issues of the fight against human trafficking, the Mist is the first association of women victims of trafficking in France: half of the board of directors is made up of women having been trafficked as minors.
From its first year of existence (2020):
- The association has become the first guidance service in France for the national Ac.Sé system, which allows victims in insecurity to be geographically removed to shelters in other regions of France (decree n ° 2007-1352 of September 13, 2007 relating to the admission to stay, protection, reception and accommodation of foreigners who are victims of human trafficking);
- A group of members of the Mist made up civil parties, won the biggest sentence ever handed down in France for acts of trafficking in human beings at the Assises in Paris.
From its second year of existence (2021):
- The Mist is a resource center for victims and professionals who meet and support them, and a member of several dedicated national working groups coordinated by the Interministerial Mission for the Protection of Women against Violence and the Fight against Human Trafficking humans (MIPROF)
- The peer mediators of the Mist were heard by the Group of Experts on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings (Greta) during France’s assessment of the correct application of the Warsaw Convention, then by the Commission National Consultative for Human Rights (CNCDH) within the framework of the drafting of an opinion on the prostitution of minors. In this opinion adopted on April 15, 2021, the CNCDH recommends in particular the development of collaborations with mediators and peer mediators to promote the identification and support of minors in prostitution (Recommendation 7).
- The association signed a partnership with the Bareau de Paris to set up an unprecedented operating mode in a Parisian prostitution territory, between three Nigerian mediators and the volunteer lawyers of the Bus Paris Solidarity;
