The IOM Regional Office in Lima this month participated in a series
of training sessions for more than 600 officials working to prevent
human trafficking.

The training provided by IOM counter-trafficking experts, as
part of the International Seminar on Human Trafficking organized by
the Public Ministry, focused on strengthening and developing
coherent and consistent prevention strategies.

The Peruvian National Police reports 300 confirmed cases of
human trafficking, although it is estimated that there are many
more victims of internal and international trafficking.  
One hundred and twenty-six of the confirmed cases were from calls
received by the Counter-trafficking Hot Line 0800-2-3232, a service
created by IOM that is now managed by the Peruvian
Government. 

The IOM Counter Trafficking Hotline, now managed by the Ministry
of Interior, received more than 11,000 calls from its inception in
March 2006 to September 2008.  More than one hundred of these
calls, related to specific accusations against human traffickers,
were forwarded to the National Police

A new publication by IOM and Institute of International Studies
of the Catholic University Pontificia Universidad Católica
(IDEI) has shed new light on activities related to human
trafficking, such as illegal logging and mining in the region of
Madre de Dios region. 

The Madre de Dios region in southeastern Peru, bordering Brazil,
Bolivia, is a sparsely populated and isolated area with vast
natural resources, including precious woods and gold.  In the
past five years the area has received more than 20,000 internal
migrants, leading researchers to believe that attractive job offers
are leading poor Peruvians from neighbouring regions to fall prey
to human traffickers.

The study confirmed that 90% of victims of human trafficking in
this region are men from the high Andean zones exploited in illegal
logging activities and in informal gold holdings.  Twenty
percent of them are children aged between 12 and 14 years. 
The report is available in Spanish on the IOM website "paragraph-link-no-underline" href=
"http://www.iom.int">www.iom.int

At the request of the Peruvian government, IOM produced the
technical draft of the National Plan of Action on Human
Trafficking, which was approved in July 2007.

Peru is a country of origin, transit and destination for human
trafficking with a predominance of internal trafficking of women
for sexual exploitation.  Children and men are trafficked to
work in the mining and logging industries, and agriculture. 
There are also high rates of human trafficking for domestic
labour.  At the international level, there have been cases of
Peruvian women taken to Argentina, Japan, Spain and other countries
for sexual exploitation.

Human trafficking is a crime punishable by up to 25 years in
prison in Peru. On January 16, 2007 was enacted the Law Against
Human Trafficking and Migrant Smuggling (Law 28950)

For more information, please contact:

Juan Pablo Casapia Boero

MRF Lima

Tel: Tel: +511.221.7698 / 221-7209

E-mail: "mailto:jcasapia@iom.int" target="_blank" title=
"">jcasapia@iom.int