Senior
officials from six countries in the Greater Mekong Sub-region called for more
efforts to promote regional co-operation on human trafficking prevention as
they gathered in Ha Noi on Tuesday.
Speaking at the opening ceremony, Lieutenant General
Pham Quy Ngo, deputy minister of Public Security, praised the region's
Coordinated Mekong Ministerial Initiative Against Trafficking (COMMIT), signed
in October 2004, for supporting and assisting country members to develop and
implement national plans of action to address human trafficking and promulgate
laws on anti-human trafficking.
"Vietnam is determined to mainstream
COMMIT into its national plan of action," Ngo said. "We have close
co-operation with China, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand as well as non-COMMIT
countries in prevention, suppression, rescue and repatriation to reduce
trafficking cases."
Vietnam's National Plan of Action against
human trafficking in the 2011-15 period was approved by the Prime Minister in
August 2011, and about VND300 billion (US$14.28 million) from national budget
has been given to this programme.
During the implementation of the Sub-regional
Plan of Action for 2008-10 (SPA II) under COMMIT, Vietnam has developed various
new legal documents related to anti-human trafficking and carried out many
campaigns to raise awareness, particularly among poor and vulnerable groups.
UN Resident Coordinator in Vietnam Pratibha
Mehta praised the country's first Trafficking in Persons law to include men,
which came into effect on January 1 this year after being passed by the
National Assembly in March 2011.
Besides direct and comprehensive
anti-trafficking legislation, Mehta said countries should pay more attention to
provide forms of social, economic, legal and livelihood assistance, which is
critical to reduce the vulnerability of those who have already been victimised
by being re-trafficked.
"The experiences of trafficking can leave
deep scars that victims, whether they are male or female, children or adults,
need assistance to recover from," she said.
Some of the targets for COMMIT SPA III
(2011-2013) include further developing anti-human trafficking data, improving
research and analytical work and measuring the impact of multi-agency
prevention, protection and prosecution efforts across the Mekong region.
The Inter-Ministerial Meeting (IMM-3) of
Mekong sub-regional countries on fighting human trafficking will open tomorrow
and see the signing of a second joint statement on anti-human trafficking.
Officials estimate that at least a quarter of
a million people are victimised by trafficking each year in GMS countries.
News Desk
Viet Nam News
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