Achèvement de la mise en œuvre:
NonRaisons pour lesquelles aucune mesure n'a été prise:
Text: Republic of Poland and its National Red Cross Society (PRC) maintaining a long-standing partnership relations in Restoring Family Links through the Information and Tracing Service of the Polish Red Cross, agree to increase cooperation in order to scale up access
to support for missing persons, including migrants and refugees, especially in tracing and family reunification.
Action plan:
-continuing cooperation with domestic and foreign institutions and sister National Societies in the area of information exchange
– activities to respect the right to privacy, including the protection of personal data of members of separated families and missing persons as a result of armed conflicts, disasters and other crisis situations
Indicators for measuring progress:
– participation in meetings regarding the development of cooperation in the area of restoring family links
– “Code of Conduct on data protection”
Resource implications:
– development of cooperation aimed at improving the quality of services provided in the area of restoring family links
– an increase of respect for the right to privacy, including the protection of personal data, of members of separated families and missing persons as a result of armed conflicts, disasters and other crisis situations
Implementation:
Polish Red Cross
The Polish Red Cross National Information and Tracing Office works to restore family links through: searching for and establishing the fate of victims of war, military conflicts, and natural disasters (including the victims of World War II and refugees/migrants), issuing certificates on the fate of persons searched for on the basis of its own archives and documents obtained as a result of efforts made, searching for war graves at home and abroad, attending exhumations of victims of war, transferring Red Cross messages, that is family messages to countries affected by armed conflicts or natural disasters, conducting humanitarian searches in cases where a family suddenly lost contact with its relative abroad and cannot reconnect despite having their last address, including searching for people who went to work abroad over the recent years (economic migrants), searching for migrants from abroad who went missing on the territory of Poland. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Office has joined the International Committee of the Red Cross’ global campaign, which encourages people to stay in contact with their relatives while maintaining all safety measures. Relevant informative and educational materials were published.
As a measure of data protection, an intranet platform is being implemented to exchange emails between the National Information and Tracing Offices of local societies. In connection with the crisis on the Polish-Belarusian border in autumn 2021, the Office organised and conducted a series of meetings for local authorities of the Podlaskie Province to inform them about the programme for restoring family ties. Additional staff were also trained in the PRC border branches to support the implementation of this programme. Leaflets on the possibility to benefit from assisted search for family members, printed in several languages, are distributed among migrants in Border Guard centres.
As the war in Ukraine broke out, the Polish Office enhanced cooperation with the ICRC. In addition to trainings on migrant protection for the staff and services involved in humanitarian assistance, the Office personnel conduct interviews with migrants making tracing requests. Most of the PRC beneficiaries are in touch with their family members thanks to modern technologies—they are more often in need of charging their phones. In the reported period, there are 150 tracing cases pending and 23 have been successfully completed. To this end, regular contacts are maintained with the Office’s counterpart at the Ukrainian Red Cross, as well as with the Central Tracing Agency.
Ministry of National Defence
The Military University of Armed Forces has carried out a research project “Psychological profiling as an aid in conducting military operations”. The project focuses on describing the psychological resources stemming from given personality type’s individual predisposition and impacting the way one copes with the stress factors originating in the surrounding environment, or stress management quality.
A student organisation called “Koło Iskra” has been established at the Polish Air Force University, offering voluntary help to people in need, support to the work of hospices and to educational and childcare centres, and holding charity collections.