Dawid-Olczyk was presented the award by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the report’s launch ceremony in Washington on Tuesday.
The State Department’s Kari Johnstone said that Dawid-Olczyk was honoured ”in recognition of her extraordinary leadership in directly assisting victims of human trafficking for more than a quarter of a century, lending her expertise in the creation of anti-trafficking training materials and films, and maintaining a strong relationship with the Polish government to prevent the exploitation of refugees across the Poland-Ukraine border.”
In a profile of Dawid-Olczyk, the Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report described the Warsaw-based La Strada Foundation as a leading NGO that provides comprehensive assistance to trafficking victims, saying that Dawid-Olczyk has for years advocated for the creation of a strong system of assistance and support for trafficking victims.
“In 2009, she conceptualized and secured funding from the Ministry of the Interior and Administration for the National Intervention and Consultation Center for Victims of Human Trafficking (KCIK)," the report said.
"Every year, La Strada has successfully competed to run KCIK, which directly assists more than 200 victims of human trafficking, providing them with safe shelter, psychological and medical care, legal counseling, and other needed services."
The report added that “since the beginning of the refugee crisis on the Poland-
Ukraine border, La Strada has been actively involved in prevention and public awareness activities. The organization prepared guidelines with basic safety rules for refugees from Ukraine and staffed a hotline to respond to dangerous situations that could be connected to human trafficking.”
(mk/gs)