May 16, 2008
Aleksi Vachadze, Georgia Today

In response to Georgia’s reputation as a people trafficking transit country, the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association (GYLA) announced a competition in March 2008 for artists to design a special anti-trafficking logo to be used by GYLA. The award ceremony was held this week, on May 14.

The four best entries were designed by Irakli Datoshvili in first place, Sophia Kvitaishvili in second, Dali Machaidze in third, and young painter Besa Qartvelishvili took forth place.

A GYLA representative commented: “We decided to award the logo which best describes the problem of trafficking. We take pride in our association’s work, and we try hard to make the public aware of this problem spanning five continents. We will place the winning logo everywhere to publicize our anti-human trafficking message. The only way we can combat this life-ruining phenomenon is through public awareness. All the participants were very original in their paintings but we decided to award only four”.

“The anti-trafficking logo was interesting,” says Besa Qartvelishvili, the fourth prize winner. “I sent in two logos and to be honest I thought the other one would be awarded, but I guess the jury decided differently. I created a logo showing a young adult, an old man and a woman were sitting in a market basket, waiting to be sold.” Besa added that working with GYLA was very interesting.

GYLA is preparing for their final trafficking awareness publicity campaign, during which the winning logo will feature greatly. This anti-trafficking campaign is part of GYLA’s long-running ‘No to Trafficking’ project, which began in 2005 with the support of USAID and other organizations.