IOM welcomes the launch this Thursday 4 October of "The Welcome
Book for the Young African Footballer" by the Paris-based NGO
Culture Foot Solidaire and the Union of Professional Football Clubs
(UPFC).

The guidebook will be distributed to professional football clubs
in France in order to facilitate the integration of young football
players into footballing life in Europe as well to ensure awareness
of their rights and the services available to them. It will include
information ranging from how to use the metro to where to go for
help if and when footballing dreams turn sour.

This is one of the first concrete initiatives to be realized
within the framework of recommendations made by the European
Parliament's Belet Report and the European Commission's white paper
on sport, both of which address the issue of integration of
non-European sportsmen and women.

The guidebook being launched this week is just one of several
activities undertaken by Culture Foot Solidaire to support young
footballers. The NGO and its president, Jean-Claude Mbvoumin, are
also active in Cameroon providing advice and support to both young
footballers and clubs throughout the country.

Many young African footballers are lured to Europe with promises
of money and glory only to end up exploited or abandoned. 
Earlier this year IOM assisted 34 Ivorian adolescents who had been
sequestered in the south of Mali after their parents had been
tricked into paying a rogue agent to bring them to Europe. 
Culture Foot Solidaire has been in direct contact with at least 800
young Africans in France abandoned by traffickers, middlemen and
football clubs.

"There has been a lot of talk recently about the exploitation of
young African footballers and it is encouraging to see an
organization like Culture Foot Solidaire actually doing something
about it.  In line with IOM's goal to raise greater awareness
in West Africa of this particular form of exploitation, we are
working with Culture Foot Solidaire on some innovative ways to
tackle the problem. The challenge now is to ensure that the funding
is there to put the ideas into action," says IOM's head of
counter-trafficking, Richard Danziger.

The launch will take place at the UPFC Headquarters, 88 Avenue
Kléber in Paris, France.

For more information contact:

Richard Danziger

IOM Geneva

Tel: + 41 22 717 9334

E-mail: "mailto:rdanziger@iom.int">rdanziger@iom.int

or

Jean-Claude Mbvoumin

Culture Foot Solidaire

Tel: +33 6 22 70 37 37 or

+33 1 34 12 55 73

E-mail: "mailto:culturefootsolidaire@wanadoo.fr">culturefootsolidaire@wanadoo.fr 

Website: "http://www.footsolidaire.org/">www.footsolidaire.org