Indonesia - Indonesian National Police public affairs officers from across the country are meeting this week for an IOM-facilitated training on transnational crimes. It is part of an effort to educate the general public about a range of issues including people smuggling and human trafficking.

IOM Indonesia, in cooperation with the INP Public Relations Division, organized the two-day National Technical Meeting on Combating Transnational Crime in Indonesia, in Bandung, West Java, for police spokesmen from 32 provinces and municipalities across the 5,200km-long archipelagic nation.

As the frontline agency responding to complex transnational crimes like people smuggling and human trafficking at a time when migration issues are high on the news agenda, the police are in a unique position to educate and inform, says IOM Indonesia deputy chief of mission Steve Hamilton.

“Irregular migration is a global issue playing out prominently in the media across Indonesia so there is no better time for the INP to give their officers the tools they need to respond to questions and dispel myths about migrants within its own borders,” he said.

“It is a vast country with an extensive maritime-border and each region has its own migration-related issues. While not a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, it actually has more comprehensive coordination mechanisms than most countries.”

Officers will engage with a variety of speakers from the Coordinating Ministry of Legal, Political, and Security Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Directorate General of Immigration, Criminal Investigation Division of the Indonesian National Police, and IOM.

The head of INP’s public affairs division INP Inspector General Anton Charliyan said the force will organize local awareness-raising efforts around the country targeting local police, civil society, tradition and non-traditional leaders to ensure the broadest dissemination of information about transnational crimes.

“We want to develop public opinion on people smuggling and human trafficking and raise awareness that these are wrong,” he said. “We also want to approach the community on a more humanist and empathic level so they understand that the migrants themselves are victims of these crimes.”

This week’s meeting marks the second collaboration between IOM and INP’s public affairs division following the successful May 2014 national technical meeting in Surabaya, East Java.

For further information please contact Paul Dillon, IOM Jakarta, Tel. +62 811 944 4612 Email: pdillon@iom.int