Youth and the Prevention of Violent Extremism: Workshop on Perspectives from the Black Sea 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. In this context, Austria convenes this year, with the support of OSCE executive structures and the Mission to Moldova, a series of sub-regional workshops 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.
This workshop for the Black Sea region brought together a group of 14 young men and women from Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Moldova, Romania, Turkey, and the Russian Federation. Participants included youth who are involved in preventing VERLT or active in relevant areas, such as intolerance, xenophobia, hate speech, hate crimes, marginalization, disenfranchisement, gangs, or hooliganism. They shared their experience and collectively formulated recommendations for policy makers.
This event and two upcoming workshops for South Eastern Europe and Central Asia are held as part 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.
