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Friday 27 July 2007
Spokesperson : Jemini Pandya |
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BELGIUM – Securing a Safer Future for
Unaccompanied Minors
SUDAN – Floods Halt Barge Returns of Internally
Displaced as Air Returns Continue
HAITI – New Project Boosts Migration Management
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BELGIUM – Securing a Safer Future for Unaccompanied Minors – With many tens of thousands of children estimated to be found within the European Union (EU) each year without legal papers, parents or means to be looked after, IOM is launching a new Europe-wide programme aimed at improving current legislation promoting and protecting the rights of unaccompanied minors arriving on the territory.
Funded by the European Commission, the programme will bring together a network of experts and government officials from Belgium, Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania to produce a manual and recommendations on first reception and treatment of unaccompanied minors.
Improved legislation should be based on principles such as making decisions based on the best interests of the child, placing unaccompanied minors in less restrictive settings and in a permanent environment as soon as possible.
“Unaccompanied minors should be treated with special attention and care. They are particularly vulnerable, not least because of the emotional and physical traumas they have experienced during their travels,” said Bernd Hemingway, IOM’s Regional Representative in Brussels. “Some of these children may be victims of abuse, neglect, or abandonment; while others, separated from their families, social network and communities of origin, become depressed or experience psychosomatic symptoms. Despite progress mainly in awareness-raising and improving institutional responses, many protection concerns still remain in Europe.”
Recognizing that defending the best interests of the child can often conflict with the migration legislation of an individual country due to a fear that a too favourable status for minors might create a migration pull factor, the programme will focus on European-wide coordination and coherence of decisions concerning unaccompanied minors, provision of social services, guardianship systems, mechanisms to identify and verify children and their ages, and reception policies.
Experts and national authorities will also address the problem of unaccompanied minors who disappear from reception centres and who run a high risk of becoming victims of trafficking.
Unaccompanied children come to the EU from all parts of the world, especially from Eastern Europe, Africa, and Asia. In Belgium alone, about one thousand unaccompanied minors enter the country each year.
The first experts’ meeting will take place in Brussels in September, followed by exchange study visits and a second experts’ meeting in Vienna.
For further information, please contact:
Pascal Reyntjens
Tel.:+32-2-282.45.60, Email: preyntjens@iom.int
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SUDAN – Floods Halt Barge Returns of Internally Displaced as Air Returns Continue– Severe flooding in six Sudanese states has led to the members of Sudan’s Joint Return Task Force to postpone Nile barge operations to return internally displaced people to their homes in the south of the country when the rainy season ends in early October.
With the Southern Sudanese government declaring Upper Nile, Jonglei, Unity, Northern Bahr El Ghazal, Lakes and Warrap States as disaster areas, voluntary returns by river barge have been put on hold to ensure the safety of returning internally displaced people.
So far, 451 displaced Sudanese have been assisted to return home to Shambe and Bor in Jonglei state from Kosti on the White Nile by barge. Another barge return had been planned for early next month from Kosti to Malakal in Upper Nile state.
The halt comes as air operations to return displaced people from Khartoum to former homes in Central and Western Equatoria via Juba continue on IOM-chartered planes after the destruction of a key bridge by flood waters near Yei delayed the return for safety reasons of a group of returnees bound for their home town of Maridi in Western Equatoria. The group of 75 had already been registered and medically screened for return by IOM on 22 July and will now be flown from Khartoum to Juba on 28 July and from Juba to Maridi on 29 July.
In new operational developments, the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) is now logistically assisting the return operation by generously providing cargo flights from Khartoum to Juba to transport the one-two metric cubes of luggage each displaced family is permitted to take back home with them.
Since air operations began on 10 July, 778 people have returned to their homes in Southern Sudan. Overall, about 44,000 displaced South Sudanese have been assisted as part of the Joint Return Plan of the Government of National Unity (GoNU), Government of Southern Sudan (GoSS) and the United Nations and which is implemented by IOM to help those displaced by decades of war between north and south Sudan, go home.
For further information, please contact:
Simona Opitz, IOM Khartoum,
Tel: +249 912339700 or Email: sopitz@iom.int
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HAITI – New Project Boosts Migration Management – IOM’s Capacity Building in Migration Management (CBMM) project in Haiti will be launched today in Port-au-Prince.
The CBMM project, funded by the Canadian Government’s Stabilization and Reconstruction Task Force (START), is a comprehensive one-year programme aimed at strengthening and enhancing Haiti's capacity to manage regular and irregular migrant flows.
The project will provide a broad range of assistance to the Haitian Immigration Service, including computer and office equipment, document examination tools, expert assistance in developing Haitian immigration legislation, procedural manuals, management skills and facilitating cross-border cooperation and discussion of vital migration issues with other Caribbean nations.
The first activities, scheduled to start immediately, include renovating Haiti’s checkpoints, providing them with stable electricity, computers, a badly-needed radio communication system and operational vehicles.
“I strongly supported this project from the very beginning. I am confident it will bring numerous benefits to our Immigration Service, the Ministry of Interior, and all other agencies involved in managing migration in Haiti,” said Paul-Antoine Bien-Aime, Haiti’s Minister of Interior.
The project covers all 20 ports of entry in Haiti, air, land and seaports. While conditions and infrastructure differ and the two international airports are better equipped, all ports of entry face acute shortages of even basic equipment. Haitian immigration officers work in particularly difficult and challenging conditions at the four busy land checkpoints along the border with the Dominican Republic. With a few exceptions, no checkpoints have stable electricity supply or reliable means of communications.
Maureen Achieng, IOM’s Chief of Mission in Haiti, said that while this programme tackles key administrative capacity gaps, it will take more than a one-year project to make the Haitian Immigration Service and border management agencies fully sustainable and effective. “The project will offer a good foundation to develop future capacity-building strategies that would consolidate further resources and expertise for the Haitian agencies responsible for migration management and controls. Furthering regional cooperation on migration issues is an important aspect of this undertaking, including combating terrorism and trans-border crime in the Caribbean region.”
Although the situation in Haiti is becoming more stable, migration and border control agencies continue facing significant challenges and their effectiveness remains limited. The Dominican border remains an issue of particular concern with large flows of irregular migration, drug and weapons smuggling and other trans-border crime. While Immigration and Customs officials are present at the checkpoints, there is no Border Guard service to patrol and control the green and blue borders.
For more information please contact:
Alexander Kapirovsky, IOM Port-au-Prince,
Email: sopitz@iom.int
For additional information:
Jean-Philippe Chauzy
Tel:+41 22 717 9361 - Mobile: 41 79 285 4366, pchauzy@iom.int
Jemini Pandya
Tel:+41 22 717 9486 - Mobile:+41 79 217 3374 jpandya@iom.int
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