IOM counter trafficking experts from around the globe will converge
on Vienna, Austria next week to take part in a major UN conference
on human trafficking.

Some 30 IOM specialists from Europe, Asia and Latin America will
take part in the Vienna Forum, an event organized as part of the UN
Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking (UN.GIFT), which will
take place in the Austrian capital Wednesday 13th through Friday
15th February.

Over 1,000 delegates from international agencies, NGOs,
governments, academia, the private sector and the entertainment
industry are expected to attend the Forum, which hopes to raise
awareness of human trafficking and trigger more effective action to
stop it.

IOM has organized a series of panels and workshops with leading
experts during the Forum to discuss topics including: proactive
prevention; the role of religious communities; trafficking in
post-crisis communities; health issues associated with trafficking;
cooperation between civil society and law enforcement; and the
return and reintegration of victims.

Key messages that IOM wants to emerge from the Forum are that
human trafficking is an extreme form of exploitation in which
society is often complicit. Despite its criminal nature, people
often turn a blind eye because it provides them with cheaper goods
and services. Migrants are often the victims because they still
lack the social protection to which they are entitled.

UN.GIFT was launched in March 2007 and is a cooperative
initiative of IOM and five other intergovernmental agencies –
the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, International Labour
Organization, United Nations Children's Fund, United Nations Office
of the High Commissioner of Human Rights and the Organization for
Security and Co-operation in Europe.

Media arrangements at the Forum will include copyright-free
broadcast quality video illustrating human trafficking via tape and
online, video Public Service Announcements, and highlights from the
event. A limited amount of free TV satellite transmission time,
including uplink and space segment will also be made available for
TV broadcasters wishing to transmit pre-recorded or live inserts to
their programmes.

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For further information on the Forum, press kits and to set up
interviews with IOM human trafficking experts, please contact:

Chris Lom

Tel. +66.819275215

or

Austrian Tel. +43.650.2618782 (from Monday 11th February.)

E-mail / Blackberry: "mailto:clom@iom.int">clom@iom.int