Friday 4 October 2002

Press Briefing Notes
Friday 4 October 2002
Spokesperson: Niurka Piñeiro

AZERBAIJAN - New Study on Human Trafficking
UNITED STATES - New Funding for Counter Trafficking Activities
KOSOVO - Counter Trafficking Report
MOZAMBIQUE - MIDSA Workshop on Trafficking in Persons
SENEGAL - Workshop on International Migration in West Africa
AFGHANISTAN - Soap Opera Stars Return Home
COLOMBIA - Assistance to Internally Displaced Children





AZERBAIJAN - New Study on Human Trafficking - "Shattered Dreams: A Report on Trafficking in Persons in Azerbaijan" shows that high unemployment and
a lack of decent paying jobs are major factors that force Azeri women to migrate abroad - frequently causing them to fall into the hands of traffickers.

The IOM study, which took place between December 2001 and July 2002, was carried out in cooperation with the Azeri Parliament, the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Justice, as well as local NGOs and the media.

The opening of international borders allowed organized crime to flourish in Azerbaijan and neighboring countries and paved the way for traffickers to carry out the trafficking of women desperate to make a living.

As part of the research, 150 interviews were carried out amongst victims of trafficking and at-risk population in Baku, Ganja, Sumgayit, Khanlar, Guba Hachmaz and Nakhichevan. The researchers also visited the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to obtain additional data and facts about trafficking in women from Azerbaijan.

The research proved that poverty, gender inequality, and lack of awareness of the risks of trafficking create a perfect environment to attract women with false promises.

The majority of the victims are young women aged 19 to 35 trafficked mainly to Turkey and the UAE. Although no direct evidence was obtained, there are indicators of trafficking in women and minors to Russia, Pakistan and Western Europe. The report also confirms that female migrants depend entirely upon traffickers in their migration abroad. During the interviews, the victims complained that they often suffered from indebtedness, extortion, isolation, violence, health risks, and lack of freedom of movement.

The report establishes the need to develop an appropriate legal framework to effectively prosecute traffickers and to protect victims. Similarly, the report says there is an urgent need to set up appropriate structures to offer social, legal, medical and psychological assistance to the victims. It also recommends the setting up of a national plan of action.

"It is high time to start joint counter-trafficking activities with national authorities, international organizations and the civil society," says IOM's Chief of Mission in Baku Joost van der Aalst. "IOM is calling for a consultative and broad approach, bringing prevention protection and prosecution together and creating effective measures to combat trafficking in persons, a phenomenon which is on the increase."

Over the past few months, IOM Baku has produced several publications and has started a dialog with national authorities, NGOs, international organisations and the media. This has resulted in two roundtable discussions on the pitfalls of irregular migration for women who wish to work abroad.

The UNFPA and the US Embassy in Azerbaijan financed this study. For further information contact: Joost van der Aalst, IOM Azerbaijan, Tel: 994.12.97.04.31 iombaku@iom.int The report is available on the IOM Website www.iom.int

UNITED STATES - New Funding for Counter Trafficking Activities - IOM counter trafficking programmes have received new funding from the United States Government totalling US$3.6 million for programmes in Belarus, Bulgaria, Cambodia, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Moldova, Nigeria, Thailand, Romania, Turkey, and Ukraine.

The new funding will allow the IOM office in the Dominican Republic to continue providing return and reintegration assistance to victims and to carry out the information campaign. In El Salvador, a new shelter for victims will be built.

In Ethiopia, IOM will use the funds for trafficking prevention and HIV/AIDS information programmes in schools. In Nigeria, an IOM information campaign will inform potential victims of the dangers of trafficking and HIV/AIDS, and provide reintegration assistance to victims returning to their country. In Ghana, a programme to combat child trafficking will be put in place.

In Asia the IOM programme supporting the reintegration of trafficking victims to Cambodia will continue. In India, reintegration assistance will be provided to returning victims. And in Thailand and Laos, IOM will support anti-trafficking cooperation between the two countries and provide return and reintegration assistance to victims.

In Europe, IOM will support counter trafficking activities in Belarus and Romania. In Romania a shelter for victims will also be opened. IOM's work in Bulgaria will involve the development of an NGO counter-trafficking network that will include safe houses and an information campaign targeted at minors. In Moldova and Ukraine, IOM will continue providing support for the existing shelters. In Turkey the funding will support research on trafficking to Turkey.

KOSOVO - Counter Trafficking Report - The IOM office in Kosovo is launching today the latest situation report of its Return and Reintegration Programme for Victims of Trafficking. The report is based on the true stories of 322 victims that were assisted by IOM Kosovo between February 2000 and September 2002.

The two main components of the report are:

Focus on Moldova. Because it is the main source country (among Easter European countries) of trafficking victims to the Balkan region. Moldova is one of the poorest country of Europe. As per IOM and UNDP figures, up to one million people left Moldova in search of employment and better living conditions.
A psychological analysis of the trauma suffered by the victims. The traffickers exert an extremely brutal, cruel and manipulative treatment over the victims, physically and psychologically. The use violence, rape, beating, torture, starvation, physical exhaustion, isolation, control and deception to force women to obey their rules is commonplace. The reactions of the victims to this trauma are: fear and shock; disorientation and confusion; despair and withdrawal, passivity and avoidance, ideas of shame and guilt; feelings of unworthiness; feeling of uselessness and helplessness; suspicion and distrust, and suicidal thoughts.





For more information contact Tamara Osorio, IOM Pristina Tel: 381.38.549.042 TOsorio@iom.ipko.org The full report is available on the IOM Website
www.iom.int

MOZAMBIQUE - MIDSA Workshop on Trafficking in Persons - IOM, its Migration Dialogue for Southern Africa (MIDSA) partners and the Government of Mozambique will host a workshop on trafficking in persons in the 14 member states of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) from 7 to 9 October, in Maputo, Mozambique. With a specific focus on the trafficking of women and children, the workshop will bring together the relevant governmental and intergovernmental partners, the United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention (UNODCCP) the United Nations Childrens' Fund (UNICEF), INTERPOL, and NGOs.

Incidents of trafficking in the SADC region are not well documented, although preliminary data gathered by IOM suggests that trafficking, particularly for purposes of sexual exploitation, is increasingly pervasive. South Africa, with its excellent transportation network and relative prosperity is both a destination country for trafficked women and children from its less affluent neighbours, as well as a source and transit country for traffickers who use it as a gateway to Western Europe, North America, and Southeast Asia.

In order to raise the profile of the issue in the SADC Region, workshop participants will be introduced to trafficking as a global phenomenon, with the particular vulnerability of children being the subject of several presentations. IOM field researchers will report on their most recent findings of trafficking in the region, while other presenters will focus on the legal instruments available to combat trafficking in the region, and the techniques used by law enforcement officials to combat the problem.

Participants will have an opportunity to apply their knowledge during an extended break-away session in which they will be given five hypothetical scenarios, and asked to decide which can be classified as trafficking situations. Of those scenarios determined to be examples of trafficking, participants will then be asked to come up with a series of activities for each of the following three areas of intervention: (i)prevention, (ii)protection, (iii)return, reintegration, and/or rehabilitation. Implementing agencies will be identified to correspond with each activity.

The timing of the Workshop coincides with the end of the first phase of IOM's six-month research assessment, during which more than 85 interviews were conducted with government officials, NGOs, and victims of trafficking in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban, and Cape Town. The second phase, set to begin following the Workshop, will take the researchers back along the trafficking routes in the region and into the countries of origin.

SENEGAL - Workshop on International Migration in West Africa - The Workshop held in Dakar, from 30 September to 4 October under joint ECOWAS- IOM sponsorship, brought together more than 50 participants from 15 countries of the sub-region.

The participants reviewed and assessed their individual approaches to the formulation and the application of legal instruments relating to the management of migration (including the issue of internal displacement). They also discussed approaches to the development of data systems (data collection, data storage, analysis and applications in the field of migration management and in the decision making process).

Workshop activities led to:

the production of a handbook of migration terminology for ECOWAS countries;
the development of a workplan for the production of a compendium and analysis of legislative instruments;
the development of a workplan for a survey of migration data sources, means of data collection, modes of analysis and operational applications.





All of these activities will contribute substantially to the construction of an ECOWAS-wide migration observatory, which will be based on a network of satellite
national observatories in the member countries.

AFGHANISTAN - Soap Opera Stars Return Home - IOM's Return of Qualified Afghans programme, which has already helped 272 Afghan professionals to return to jobs in Afghanistan, has launched a new initiative to help key staff members of Afghan institutions to return home from Pakistan.

The first beneficiaries of the Swedish-funded initiative are 105 staff members of the BBC-sponsored Afghan Educational Project - which has produced the popular radio soap opera New Home New Life in Dari and Pashtu in Peshawar, Pakistan for the past seven years.

The soap opera has been essential listening for Afghans living in the refugee camps in Iran and Pakistan. It uses well-known actors, many of them previously stars in Afghanistan, and strong storylines to put across educational messages ranging from hygiene and disease prevention, to traditional Afghan culture. This year the programme used its easily accessible format to cover the Loya Jirga electoral process.

Under the RQA initiative, the 105 New Home New Life staff each received a US$200 travel and relocation grant; half of it paid in Pakistan and half on arrival in Kabul. The soap team is scheduled to resume work from new premises in Kabul later this month. As the beneficiaries will be returning to essentially the same jobs that they held in Pakistan, they won't receive other RQA benefits - notably salary subsidies.

RQA candidates are currently filling key posts in 21 Afghan government ministries and 34 NGO's, companies and other agencies. The RQA database now holds the resumes of over 6,000 Afghan professionals worldwide, interested in returning home to participate in the rebuilding of their country.

COLOMBIA - Assistance to Internally Displaced Children - Children are the most vulnerable victims of the one million Colombians who have been internally displaced by the on-going conflict. And the IOM office in Colombia is providing assistance to internally displaced children.

According to CODHES a local NGO working on human rights and displacement issues, some 412,500 or 55% of all internally displaced persons are under 18 years of age. This number confirms an IOM survey conducted in six provinces at the end of 2001, which revealed that children under the age of 7 make up 24.2% of the internally displaced and another 30.9% are between the ages of 7 and 17.

To assist this large and vulnerable population, IOM is working with the Colombian Institute of Family Welfare (ICBF by its Spanish acronym) providing health and nutrition, education and psychological support.

The US$500,000 programme funded by the United States Government has provided assistance to more than 300 communities in the provinces of Nariño, Putumayo, Caquetá, Valle del Cauca, Santander y Norte de Santander.

For infants and children up to 7 years of age, the programme has provided support for the building of community centers run by mothers and where some 3,300 children between receive meals, care and assistance.

For children between 9 and 12 years of age, the IOM programme is supporting 1,234 youth clubs where older children spend their free time enjoying educational and recreational activities. They are involved in theater and other arts, sports and academic activities. The programme has also trained 500 community leaders.

IOM's Manuel Rojas recently visited one of the participating communities and spoke with its residents. "The people from the community of Caño Limón built a nursery school and a feeding center. By doing the work themselves, they were able to save money. But most important, they are so proud of the school and center because it was a community effort."

For more information please contact: Diego Beltrand or Liliana Arias, IOM Bogota Tel: 57.1.636.2423 dbeltrand@iom.org.co