Youth and the Prevention of Violent Extremism: Workshop on Perspectives from the Western Balkan Region
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Austria, which holds the OSCE Chairmanship in 2017, has identified youth and the prevention of violent extremism and radicalization that lead to terrorism (VERLT) as one of its key priorities. With the support of OSCE executive structures and field operations, a series of sub-regional workshops are taking place on youth and preventing violent extremism for the Black Sea region, the Western Balkans and Central Asia. As part of the series, the first two events were held in 2016 by Austria for youth from North Africa and Western Europe.
The workshop for the Western Balkan region brought together a group of 12 young men and women who are involved in preventing VERLT or are active in relevant areas, such as intolerance, xenophobia, hate speech, hate crimes, marginalization, disenfranchisement, gangs, or hooliganism, to share their experience and collectively formulate recommendations for policy makers.
This event and the upcoming workshop for Central Asia are held under the umbrella of the “OSCE United in Countering Violent Extremism (#UnitedCVE)” campaign and provide a platform for youth to brainstorm and share their experience and perceptions of the threat of VERLT. They got an opportunity to discuss and review the work done, as well as formulate recommendations for policy-makers which will be shared with OSCE participating States and Partners for Co-operation at a 2017 OSCE-wide counter-terrorism conference to be held in Vienna on 23-24 May 2017.
Recommendations from Youth
This is the summary of the most important recommendations that the workshop participants from Western Europe, the Black Sea region, the Western Balkans and Central Asia identified from their experience on preventing violent extremism.
