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Friday 10 August 2007
Spokesperson : Jemini Pandya |
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HAITI – Trafficked Children Returned Home
PAKISTAN - IOM Teams Assist Flood Victims
NIGER – Preventing Irregular Migration
SWITZERLAND -IOM and Mauritania Sign Agreement
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HAITI – Trafficked Children Returned Home – A group of 47 child victims of trafficking have been returned by IOM and the Pan American Development Foundation (PADF) to their homes in the impoverished district of Grand Anse in south-west Haiti, where IOM will provide follow-on care and assistance.
Aged between two and seven years of age, the children had been taken from their home town of Jeremie to Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince where they were kept at a rogue centre awaiting international adoption for a period ranging from six months to two years.
The children, who all come from major trafficking source communities, were ‘given away’ by their parents in return for promises made by traffickers working for the centre to assist them financially to set up small businesses, and to meet the needs of children who’d been taken away and those remaining behind.
After learning that they had been misled by the traffickers and of the inhumane conditions in which their children were being kept at the centre, parents approached a local NGO, Initiative Départementale contre la Traite et le Traffic des Enfants (IDETTE) to denounce the owner of the centre and to ask for the return of their children. With the help of other NGOs, the parents filed a complaint against the owner of the centre in 2006 and campaigned for the return of their children.
The Haitian government through the Institute for Social Well-Being and Research (IBERS) and the Brigade of the Protection of Minors, the Pan American Development Foundation (PADF), UNICEF, the Collectif contre la Traite et le Trafic de Personnes, local NGOs and IOM all collaborated to enable the rescue and return of these children.
According to IBERS, whose functions include the approval of adoptions, there are many other bogus centres involved in the trafficking of children for international adoptions. However, a lack of resources means the government agency is currently unable to investigate all centres and to close down all those involved in child trafficking.
A UNICEF/Terre des Hommes study in 2005 revealed that the number of crèches involved in inter-country adoptions had seen a spectacular increase in recent years with fees reaching USD 10,000, mostly to pay lawyers processing the adoptions.
In addition to sheltering the children post-rescue and in helping to return them back home, IOM will provide them with medical and psychological assistance. The educational fees of school-aged children will also be paid for one year while parents will be given micro-grants and training to set up small businesses to ease financial worries during the initial period of return.
One of the most impoverished regions of Haiti, many villages and communities in Grande Anse are difficult to access and have no schools or hospitals. Many families here have between six to eight children with parents often unable to meet basic needs such as food, education and healthcare.
Since 2005, IOM has assisted with the return and re-integration of 121 child victims of trafficking in Haiti with funding from the US State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM). In addition to providing medical and psycho-social care, IOM also carries out family tracing, evaluation and reunification, educational/vocational support in addition to giving micro-enterprise grants to parents/caretakers to prevent re-trafficking. Where family reunification is not possible, children are placed in shelters.
For further information, please contact:
Geslet Bordes at IOM Port au Prince,
Tel: +509 244 1218; 490 0505 Email:
gbordes@iom.int
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PAKISTAN- IOM Teams Assist Flood Victims - Four IOM response teams have been deployed to districts in Pakistan devastated by flash floods in late June in order to assess people’s ongoing needs and to monitor and report on the provision of services and to assist in the distribution of relief items.
The IOM operation, funded by World Food Programme and the UN’s Central Emergency Response Fund, is also helping to bring clean drinking water to displaced people and to distribute hygiene kits*, jerry cans and cooking sets.
The Pakistan National Disaster Management Authority has prioritized north-western Sindh and eastern Balochistan districts for the distribution of IOM relief items and tankers are delivering 80,000 litres of drinking water to displaced people in the area every day.
An estimated 2.5 million people were affected by flooding following four days of heavy rain in late June this year in Balochistan and Sindh, which left 324 dead. Some 6,500 villages were affected by the floods and 80,000 houses were destroyed. More than 370,000 people were displaced, many of whom are now living in schools, makeshift roadside shelters or with relatives. Over 35,000 people are now living in camps.
“Following the floods, hygiene and the spread of disease among the displaced population became a major concern. So our focus has been on providing hygiene kits and ensuring that people have access to clean drinking water,” says Brian Kelly, head of IOM Pakistan’s Emergency Response Unit.
IOM, through its implementing partner Mercy Corps, is targeting at least 7,500 vulnerable families, including women or child-headed households, the elderly and the disabled.
The IOM teams have also carried out assessment missions in Jaffarabad, Nasirabad, Bolan, Jhal Magsi, Kharan, Mastung, Khuzdar, Noshki, Awaran, Turbat and Lasbella districts of Balochistan. In Sindh, the teams assessed Dadu and Kamber-Shahdadkot districts.
*Each hygiene kit contains ziploc bags, sanitary items for women, 8 bars of soap, shampoo, a comb, a mirror and oral rehydration salts.
For further information, please contact:
Saleem Rehmat at IOM Islamabad
Tel : +92.3008565967, Emails :
srehmat@iom.int
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NIGER– Preventing Irregular Migration – As part of efforts to combat significant levels of irregular migration from Niger, and following a similar initiative in Senegal recently, the government of Niger and IOM have launched an information campaign aimed at raising awareness of the dangers of irregular migration in order to better prevent it.
Run by IOM with the support of state-run and private newspapers, radio and television stations, the four-week long campaign will include a road show, which will travel to towns and villages affected by high rates of emigration in the north-eastern region of Tahoua and around the town of Maradi, near the Nigerian border.
The road show, which will first tour the region of Niamey, has enlisted the support of former irregular migrants who will testify to the ordeal they suffered in the hands of smuggling networks.
The campaign will not only support government efforts to stem irregular migration but will also inform potential migrants of legal methods of migration in an effort to avoid the many tragedies befalling irregular migrants, often including loss of life in the deserts or crossing the sea in unseaworthy dugouts.
IOM is also providing other migration management support to Niger, which joined the Organization in 2004, including supporting efforts on border control issues through the provision of training and equipment, on travel document reinforcement, and in the voluntary return and reintegration of migrants. This includes assistance provided to 50 migrants who have returned voluntarily from Libya since February 2007.
The campaign, which falls within a programme of inter-regional dialogue between the European Union (EU) and North and Sub-Saharan Africa, is funded by the European Commission, Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands and Switzerland.
Most migrants from Niger migrate to other countries in West and Central Africa. A small percentage, however, attempt to reach Europe, with France being the main destination country.
For further information, please contact:
Yagana Tandja, IOM Niamey
Tel : +227 20 75 25 07, Emails :
ytandja@iom.int
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SWITZERLAND-IOM and Mauritania Sign Agreement – Mauritanian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, Mohamed Saleck Ould Mohamed Lemine, and IOM Director General, Brunson McKinley, have signed an agreement for the opening of an IOM office in Nouakchott.
Welcoming the agreement, McKinley said: “Thanks to its dynamic diplomacy, the Islamic Republic of Mauritania is playing an increasingly important role in the international cooperation on migration. We look forward to reinforcing our partnership with the Mauritanian government to serve both the migration priorities of the country and the rights of migrants."
Areas of future cooperation include:
• Assisted voluntary return and sustainable reintegration programmes for irregular migrants stranded in Mauritania;
• Information campaigns on the pitfalls of irregular migration;
• Technical cooperation on migration management and capacity building.
In February 2007, a workshop jointly organized by IOM, the Mauritanian Ministry of Justice, and the cooperation service of the French police, brought together judges and state prosecutors from across Mauritania to discuss ways to successfully prosecute human smugglers through the implementation of the UN’s Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and its Protocols, to which Mauritania adhered in 2005.
In recent years and in cooperation with the Mauritanian government and other partners, IOM has provided humanitarian assistance to many hundreds of migrants abandoned in the Mauritanian deserts by human smugglers and left stranded in the country without food, water, money or papers. Assistance has included the provision of assisted voluntary return to home countries including to migrants from South Asia.
The IOM-Mauritania agreement, signed at IOM headquarters, provides the Organization with the same privileges and immunities as specified by the 1947 Convention on Privileges and Immunities of the UN.
Mauritania joined IOM as a member state in June 2003.
For further information, please contact:
Redouane Saadi at IOM Geneva,
Tel : +41 22 717 9321, Emails :
rsaadi@iom.int
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