:: Representative for Eastern Europe 2009-2011

I am Mariana Yevsyukova from Ukraine and I am one of the new EICYAC Representatives for Eastern Europe and CIS. Additionally I work for the Human Rights Department of Ukraine’s Ministry of Interior and I am also Coordinator of the Youth section of All-Ukrainian Alliance against CSEC and Legal Expert of the International Women Rights Center "La Strada-Ukraine".

I have been involved in human rights issues, especially women and child rights protection, since I was 15 years old. Since 1999, I have been actively involved in the prevention of trafficking in human beings, especially women and children, domestic violence, sexual exploitation of children and the promotion of child rights and gender equality in Ukrainian society.

In 2005 after participating in the Yokohama Mid-Term Review for Europe and Central Asia, I was nominated for the EICYAC and came in second. For the past 3 years I have worked closely with the former EICYAC Representative for my region, Milica Petrovic. Milica and I, together with the EICYAC Representative for Western Europe and the youth representative from Russia worked on the development of a booklet on good practices from 10 youth movements within the European ECPAT groups.

I have a Masters Degree in Law and a Specialist Degree in International Economics. Now I am in the process of writing my thesis for my PhD in Law. Despite all the things I have to do in my professional life, I still have free time to have fun. I like dancing a lot (maybe because I used to go to ballet school when I was younger), I like singing and I like reading. But most of all I am fond of travelling. I like exploring new countries and communicating with people. This gives me the opportunity to get to know the world, not only from books or TV, but to actually feel it.

:: Representative for Eastern Europe 2005-2008

"If there is not even one door that you can knock on, you make your own door” (old Serbian saying)

I am Milica from Serbia and I am studying Journalism in Belgrade. I really love communicating and meeting all kinds of people (just as journalists do..) and so I really enjoy working for EICYAC.

Eastern Europe is a region where a lot of things change right now, but as far as combating CSEC issues are concerned, there’s still a lot that needs to be dealt with. Primarily raising awearnes since many people stil refuse to belive what is happening in their neighboorhood. It is also very important to work on prevention of child trafficking since many young people are not aware of what could happen if they travel uncarefuly. This is product of most of people did not have opportunity to leave their country for a long time.

I got in touch with ECPAT, because I had the opportunity to be youth delegate for a local NGO at the Yokohama Mid-Term Review in Ljubljana. Now that I am representative of EICYAC a lot of other exciting things followed. If you want to find out more about what has been going on in this region.

I am really very enthusiastic about my job at EICYAC, because it give opportunity to make a difference and to show that even young you can do a lot. I enjou working with enthusiastic peers and that is what gives me the push to dedicate my spare time to this kid of problems. It is wonderful when you are part of group where no body has the same mother language but you can all understand each other perfectly since you are having the same aim.