Government officials from each of
Afghanistan's 34 provinces today concluded a two-day IOM workshop
in Kabul aimed at coordinating the fight against human trafficking
in one of Asia's poorest countries.

The workshop, funded by the US State
Department's Bureau on Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM), is
part of an IOM counter trafficking project implemented with the
Afghan government to improve understanding of human trafficking in
Afghanistan, particularly among women in government and to
synergize counter trafficking interventions.

The event was opened by Judge Fawzia Aminii,
Director of the Legal Department of the Ministry of Women's Affairs
and IOM Chief of Mission Richard E. Scott, who noted that the human
trafficking targets the most vulnerable in society – mostly
women and children - and generates an estimated $7 billion to $10
billion annually worldwide.

"Afghanistan is a war torn country, a large
portion of the population have been traumatized, there is still
massive poverty and people have a low level of understanding of
their rights, making them especially vulnerable to human
traffickers," said Afghan women's right activist Sohaila
Alekozai-Mossadeq, who attended the workshop.

IOM currently carries out a number of projects
in Afghanistan designed to increase the capacity of the Afghan
authorities to detect and investigate human trafficking, identify
victims and help them. It also runs public awareness campaigns in
areas known to experience high levels of human trafficking.

To date, IOM has directly assisted nearly 100
victims and potential victims of human trafficking in Afghanistan,
80 of whom were of foreign origin, smuggled across the country's
porous borders.

In January 2006 it launched a one–year
UK-funded public information campaign to raise awareness among
potential Afghan irregular migrants of the dangers associated with
irregular migration.

IOM has also provided training to the Criminal
Investigation Department, Border Police, Human Rights Office and
Consular officials, as well as technical assistance to an internal
Law Enforcement Commission against Trafficking established by the
Ministry of Interior. It also participated in the drawing up of a
national plan of action to combat child trafficking and is
supporting the development of comprehensive counter trafficking
legislation.

Despite the absence of concrete data, there is
widespread evidence that human trafficking in Afghanistan includes
abductions for forced marriage to settle debts or blood feuds,
forced prostitution and the sale of victims into sexual and
domestic servitude.

IOM's 2004 report "Trafficking in Persons: An
Analysis of Afghanistan" can be downloaded from: "paragraph-link-underlined" href=
"http://www.iom.int/DOCUMENTS/PUBLICATION/EN/Afghan_trafficking.pdf"
target="_blank" title=
"">http://www.iom.int/DOCUMENTS/PUBLICATION/EN/Afghan_trafficking.pdf

For more information, please contact:

Rahilla Zafar

IOM Afghanistan

Tel.+93.70066036.

Email: "mailto:rzafar@iomkabul.net" target="_blank" title=
"">rzafar@iomkabul.net