IOM has launched the first of 38 awareness raising workshops for
Indonesian police officers under its Canadian-funded Frontline
Officers' Awareness Training (FLOAT 2012) project to combat people
smuggling in Indonesia.

Some 50 provincial police officers attended the FLOAT National
Leadership Awareness Workshop -Training of Trainers on People
Smuggling in Jakarta this week, which will be followed by two
regional leadership sessions. Participants from these three
trainings will lead 35 community level awareness workshops over the
next 4 months, targeting some 2,760 officers.

The leadership workshops will brief participants on the
challenges posed by people smuggling, how to handle cases of
smuggled migrants, and inter-agency coordination and
cooperation.

The Training of Trainers component will ensure that the
Indonesian National Police has a pool of trainers who can reach out
to community officers – many of whom are frontline marine,
aviation, and foot patrol police from remote locations.

Indonesia is the 4th most populous country in the world and,
with 17,000 islands and an 81,000-km long porous coastline, is a
key transit country for people smuggling, notably to Australia, but
also to Canada.

FLOAT 2012 is a 14-month, USD 2 million Canadian
government-funded regional initiative launched in January 2012 to
combat people smuggling in Southeast Asia. Other FLOAT projects are
underway in Thailand, Laos, Malaysia, Cambodia and Viet Nam.

For more information, please contact:

Ida Mae Fernandez

IOM Jakarta

E-mail: "mailto:ifernandez@iom.int">ifernandez@iom.int