Viet Nam - Partners in an Asia-Pacific campaign to combat human smuggling met in Viet Nam this week to review the initiative’s achievements and share future plans.

Under a series of Canadian-funded IOM programmes, some 2,500 frontline border officers in six Asia-Pacific countries have been trained in combating people smuggling in the past year.

On February 27-28 IOM, in cooperation with the Immigration Department of the Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security, brought together over 30 senior immigration and law enforcement officials from Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Thailand and Viet Nam in Hanoi.

They were joined by representatives from INTERPOL, UNODC and the Governments of Canada, Australia and the United States to review the outcomes of seven projects funded by Canada’s regional anti-smuggling programme.

Developed as part of Canada’s regional anti-crime efforts, these projects saw a diverse array of initiatives delivered in each of the six countries, implemented in partnership between IOM and national migration management and law enforcement agencies.

IOM’s Chief of Mission in Viet Nam, Florian Forster, who co-chaired the workshop, said:  “Bringing so many important practitioners together over two days has been a tremendous opportunity to share strategies for practical action to build State capacity, which in turn inspired innovative ideas about future activities.”

While regional and national initiatives to fight trafficking in persons are today recognized across the South East Asian (SEA) region, action against human smuggling is still relatively new for a number of countries. Smuggling of migrants occurs among countries within the region, and also includes irregular migrants transiting SEA to North America, Australia and Europe.

Apart from in-depth capacity building trainings for several hundred frontline border officers, which saw officers equipped to deliver subsequent trainings to colleagues, projects also included community awareness campaigns and the establishment of a regional document examination services centre based in Bangkok.

For more information, please contact  

Florian Forster
IOM Viet Nam
Tel. +84 9 03450196
Email: fforster@iom.int