Hanoi - Partners in a remarkable campaign against human smuggling met in Viet Nam this week to review achievement and share future plans. Under several Canadian-funded programmes some 2,500 frontline border officers were trained in preventing smuggling in persons is six Asia-Pacific countries in the past year.

On February 27-28 IOM in cooperation with the Immigration Department of the Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security gathered senior officials from the six countries in the capital, Hanoi.

Joined by representatives from INTERPOL, UNODC and the Governments of Canada, Australia and the United States, more than 30 senior immigration and law enforcement officials from Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos PDR, Malaysia, Thailand and Viet Nam reviewed the outcomes of the seven projects, funded by the Government of Canada’s regional anti-smuggling programme.

Developed as part of Canada’s anti-crime efforts, these projects saw a diverse array of initiatives delivered in each of the six countries, implemented in partnership between IOM and national migration management and law enforcement.

IOM’s Chief of Mission in Vietnam, Florian Forster, who co-chaired the workshop, said: “Bringing so many important practitioners together over two days has been a tremendous opportunity to share strategies for practical action to build State capacity, which in turn inspired innovative ideas about future activities.”

While regional and national initiatives to fight trafficking in persons are today recognized across the South East Asian (SEA) Region, action against human smuggling is still relatively new for a number of countries. Smuggling in migrants occurs among countries within the region, and also includes irregular migrants transiting SEA to North America, Australia and Europe.

Apart from in-depth capacity building trainings for several hundred frontline border officers, which saw officers equipped to deliver subsequent trainings to more than two thousand of their colleagues, projects also included community awareness campaigns and the establishment of a regional document examination services centre based in Bangkok.

For more information, please contact IOM Viet Nam’s Chief of Mission, Florian G. Forster, at Email: fforster@iom.int, Tel.+84 9 03450196