Governmental and non-governmental organizations are meeting today
in Port au Prince in a bid to raise-awareness on the
characteristics of human trafficking and migrant smuggling in Haiti
and in the region, and to exchange ideas and create conditions for
cooperation that will lead to feasible strategies.



During the seminar, IOM will launch a new brochure containing
victim profiles and trafficking routes, as well as the types of
assistance provided by IOM.



In preparation for the upcoming UN High-Level Dialogue on
International Migration and Development in New York, IOM is taking
the opportunity to encourage partners to consider human trafficking
and migrant smuggling, not only as a human rights and security
issue, but also as a development issue.



IOM experts are highlighting the importance of enhanced
coordination between migration and development policies to combat
human trafficking, by tackling poverty, and the lack of educational
and development opportunities that constitute key push and pull
factors in source and host communities.



The seminar comes at a critical time for Haiti, whose transition
and recovery is accompanied by heightened expectations for concrete
results in many areas, including counter-trafficking and smuggling.




The US Department of State’s 2006 Trafficking In Persons
Report (TIP) emphasized the importance of the newly installed
government demonstrating tangible strides in the upcoming year in
preventing human trafficking, protecting victims and prosecuting
traffickers.



Haiti is a country of origin, transit and destination for the
trafficking of men, women and children for domestic servitude,
forced labor and sexual exploitation. The TIP Report alludes to the
“restavek” system (a person, usually a young orphan,
who serves a family as an unpaid servant) as a particularly severe
and prevalent form of internal trafficking.



The report notes that while the Haitian government estimates that
90,000 to 120,000 trafficked children are in domestic servitude,
UNICEF’s figures are much higher.



The two-day seminar ending today is organized by the Organization
of American States and the government of Haiti, and co-financed by
IOM with the support of the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of
Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM).



For more information, please contact:



Jennifer Zimmermann or Margarett Lubin

IOM Haiti

Tel: (509) 245-5153

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