Mr. Chairman, Distinguished Delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Allow me first to extend, on behalf of the International
Organization for Migration (IOM) our congratulations to you and all
members of the Bureau on your election to this 63rd session.

IOM is committed to the principle that humane and orderly
migration benefits both migrants and society, and has been working
actively to counter trafficking in persons for fifteen years,
providing –inter-alia – assistance to over 15,000
victims. Given the multi-dimensional nature of human trafficking,
including issues of migration, labour, and criminal justice, IOM
maintains that partnerships are essential to any and all effective
responses, and do, in fact, stand as a fourth 'P', alongside
Prevention, Protection and Prosecution. 'Partnerships' includes
interagency cooperation.

Having been proactive in seeking out opportunities for
interagency cooperation to combat trafficking, it has been IOM's
experience that such cooperative arrangements are most effective
when they are shaped to the existing need, whether at the national,
regional, or international level, and when they are designed and
determined by the technical and resource capacities of the
participating agencies at each of these levels. In its response to
the particular challenges posed by trafficking in persons IOM
highlights 3 main competencies, namely (i) the entire range of
victim protection from direct assistance to reintegration, (ii)
technical cooperation, to build capacities of key state and
non-governmental institutions and actors to combat trafficking in
persons and (iii) fostering international dialogue and cooperation,
in particular at the regional level which, in turn, encourage
bilateral and multilateral solutions to trafficking in
persons  As a founding member of both the Global Migration
Group (GMG) and the Interagency Cooperation to Counter Trafficking
in Persons (ICAT), IOM has supported several global-level
initiatives to counter trafficking including the UN-GIFT. While
recognizing the primary importance of practical regional and
national-level policies and programmes, IOM supports the idea of a
global interagency grouping as an information-sharing mechanism to
encourage greater cooperation among the key international partners
involved in responding to the needs of states to counter
trafficking in persons. Similarly, the call for a global action
plan to counter-trafficking could be an important addition to
already existing or developing national and regional
strategies.

Mr. Chairman,

I would like to take this opportunity to recall that while
Trafficking in Persons is a serious crime that requires a
rights-based approach in addressing it, it is not a stand
alone-phenomenon. One cannot separate it from the broader migration
context.

Finding the right balance between facilitating and controlling
migration is a key challenge for all countries in attempting to
make international mobility safe. With migration management
intersecting strongly with security issues due to its cross-border
dimensions IOM regularly collaborates with governments to establish
modern border management systems, improve the integrity of travel
document, including their issuance systems, as well as to advance
identity management, information exchange, training and
intergovernmental dialogue, and integration. To this end, IOM also
works on strengthening the investigations and analysis functions of
migration departments or Ministries, and on upgrading the
complementing policy, legal and regulatory frameworks in the
migration sector.

Supportive of the 2000 Palermo Protocols, IOM's technical
assistance to governments is increasingly focused on improving law
enforcement capacities in the migration sector to identify and
effectively prosecute criminal organizations engaged in these
activities. Integral to these actions is the strong focus on
training and human resource development for migration authorities,
including the strengthening of institutional capacities for
designing, conducting and continually upgrading in-service training
programmes. By way of example, we have issued a "Passport
Examination Procedure Manual", which has been translated into 6
languages and is successfully being used by relevant ministries and
agencies around the globe. IOM is increasingly engaged in
multilateral implementation as well as technical and policy
development working groups, which ranges from actively working with
UNCTC on in-country assessments to enhanced collaboration with
INTERPOL, ICAO, FRONTEX and OSCE, to name a few.

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, regardless of the topic, whether it
is fighting trafficking in persons, overall migration management or
the specific link to security issues, support can not be limited to
bilateral technical cooperation, but is needed on the necessary
level of regional and cross-regional collaboration and cooperation,
including interagency cooperation.

I thank you, Mr. Chairman.