Friday 13 December 2002

Press Briefing Notes
Friday 13 December 2002
Spokesperson: Christopher Lom

NAURU - Failed Asylum Seekers Return to Afghanistan
COLOMBIA - Counter Trafficking Campaign Stepped Up
BELARUS - Counter Trafficking Enforcement Training



NAURU - Failed Asylum Seekers Return to Afghanistan - About 100 failed Afghan asylum seekers will voluntarily return home to Afghanistan aboard an
IOM charter flight leaving the Pacific island state of Nauru tomorrow morning. They are expected to arrive in Kabul early on Sunday.

The migrants, who were intercepted at sea en route to Australia, have spent over a year on Nauru in an IOM-managed processing center, while their asylum claims were assessed by the Australian authorities.

They decided to accept an Australian-funded voluntary return package after their asylum claims were rejected. Under a memorandum of understanding signed between the Australian government and Afghan Interim Administration in May, each migrant returning home voluntarily is entitled to a A$2,000 (US$ 1,100) cash reintegration grant. Families can receive up to AU$ 10,000 (US$5,500.)

In addition to providing flights and administering the reintegration grant, IOM's Assisted Voluntary Programme also provides reception facilities for the migrants in Kabul and onward transport to their places of origin in Afghanistan.

Tomorrow's Air Holland Boeing 757-200 charter flight, which will fly to Kabul via Port Moresby and Singapore, follows a similar IOM operation to return 113 Afghans from Nauru on November 16th.

With Saturday's return movement, the number of asylum seekers in the two IOM-administered processing centers in Nauru and Papua New Guinea's Manus island will have more than halved from over 1500 in February to under 700.

Some 600 mostly Afghan asylum seekers will remain in Nauru. Those whose asylum claims are rejected are expected to eventually return home voluntarily. Fewer than 100 mostly Iraqi asylum seekers remain at the Manus processing center, almost all of whom have been accepted as refugees and are awaiting resettlement in third countries.

Of the some 800 migrants passing through the IOM-administered Pacific processing centers since February, over 300 have been resettled in Australia and over 200 in New Zealand. After Saturday, over 250 will have opted to return to Afghanistan voluntarily with IOM.

Earlier this week Australia and Nauru agreed to extend by a year the agreement allowing Australia to process up to 1,500 asylum seekers on Nauru. Australia will also provide Nauru with an additional AU$ 14.5 million (US$ 8.2 million) in aid.





COLOMBIA - Counter Trafficking Offensive Stepped Up - Efforts to step up the fight against human trafficking in Colombia were boosted this week when the
Netherlands pledged a further Euros 584,000 to support IOM programmes aimed at prevention, research, and assistance to victims, including their reintegration into society.

The funding will provide training and build the capacity of Colombian government departments to fight trafficking, as well as providing assistance to victims, and funding information campaigns to alert society and potential victims to the dangers.

The Colombian authorities estimate that there are between 35,000 and 50,000 Colombian women victims of trafficking outside the country in the hands of traffickers. Unemployment, armed conflict and regional violence have all contributed to the problem.

IOM Colombia's US$85,000 US-funded "Prevention, Assistance and Reintegration of Victims of Trafficking" programme already provides support to NGOs working with victims of trafficking. This includes psycho-social counselling, medical assistance, vocational training and finding jobs for victims. This year the programme has helped a total of 83 victims.

The programme has also organised three counter trafficking workshops this year, in cooperation with the Colombian government and NGOs, attended by local and national counter-trafficking officials, representatives of NGOs, teachers and, importantly, trafficking victims.

The victims volunteered to participate in the workshops to relate their experiences first hand, with a view to influencing future Colombian counter-trafficking legislation. The workshops focused on providing assistance to victims and informing them about their rights under the law.

BELARUS - Counter Trafficking Enforcement Training - On Wednesday IOM Minsk in cooperation with the Belarus Ministries of Interior, Justice, Labour and Social Welfare, and Border Guards, organised a one-day seminar on law enforcement in the field of counter trafficking.

The workshop, designed to facilitate information exchange between enforcement practitioners, was funded by SIDA, the Swedish International Development Agency, and brought together 38 representatives of law enforcement agencies, border guards and state prosecutors, as well as international agencies.

Participants reviewed national and regional trends in human trafficking, identified key areas of concern and possible solutions, and looked at best practices in international law enforcement cooperation.

The seminar represented a first step towards facilitating the type of international law enforcement co-operation needed to combat human trafficking in Belarus and neighbouring countries. It provided participants with both an international perspective and a rationale for international cooperation between enforcement agencies working together to combat a growing problem.

According to IOM's "Migration Trends in Eastern Europe and Central Asia", Belarus law enforcement agencies disbanded 40 trafficking groups in 1999 and 140 in 2000. In 2000, some 200 prostitutes, many of them victims of trafficking, were deported back to Belarus from abroad.