Mr. Chairman,

Distinguished Delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen,

First, Mr. Chairman, allow me 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 62nd
session.

One of the greatest challenges in crime prevention of this young
21st century remains the fight against human trafficking and
smuggling of people. We are encouraged by the reference made in the
Secretary General's Report on 'Strengthening the United Nations
Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Programme, in particular its
technical cooperation capacity' to the Global Initiative to Fight
Trafficking (UN.GIFT). IOM in collaboration with other key
intergovernmental actors in this battle, such as UNODC, ILO,
UNICEF, UNHCHR and others have promoted the UN.GIFT to
ecoursngineer a 'turning point' in the fight against human
trafficking. UN.GIFT is backed by the generous US$15 M contribution
from the government of the United Arab Emirates, but hopes to
eventually establish a global fund that will support the
anti-trafficking efforts of a broad coalition of stakeholders. In
the meantime, UN.GIFT is hosting a series of regional workshops
around the world (Uganda, India, Thailand, Cote d'Ivoire, South
Africa, and Brazil – most to be held in the course of this
month) that build towards a Global Forum on Trafficking in Vienna
in February 2007. In addition, a number of Expert Group Initiatives
(EGI) has been established that should produce significant outputs
on a range of themes to be discussed at the Vienna Forum. IOM is
responsible for two of these: the EGI on Health and Trafficking;
and another on Stakeholder Cooperation with Law Enforcement.

Mr. Chairman,

We consider this an important initiative that warrants the
joining of our forces in the fight against human trafficking. IOM
is happy to bring to this initiative its significant experience
based on 11 years of counter-trafficking activities in almost 500
projects around the world. Our currently active 
counter-trafficking operations  in 84 countries, are primarily
focusing on (i) research and data collection; (ii) prevention
through information dissemination and awareness raising; (iii)
institutional capacity building, both of governments (including law
enforcement) and civil society groups; (iv) direct assistance to
trafficked persons, including shelter, safe and voluntary return,
and reintegration; and (v) support to development of
anti-trafficking legislation and policy.

In addition to national and regional projects, two significant
global initiatives are worth recognizing in this context namely a
Counter Trafficking Database, which serves as a unique research
tool to gain a better understanding of the human trafficking
phenomena. The database currently contains data on approximately
13,000 victims of trafficking that have been identified through IOM
projects in all regions of the world and includes key
socio-demographic indicators. Secondly IOM operates a Global
Assistance Fund (GAF), which is a special mechanism that has been
established to provide return and reintegration assistance to
trafficked persons anywhere in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the
Caribbean.

Mr. Chairman,

The issue of 'demand' as a root cause of trafficking is now
widely recognized; but we are lacking the consequent preventive
action that one would expect to curb demand. In fact, the vast
majority of resources for anti-trafficking have been supplied by
destination countries and spent in countries of origin, in the hope
of curtailing the supply of unregulated cheap labour and services
in sectors that are particularly prone to exploitation. This
approach needs to be coupled with an increased focus on activities
that inhibit demand for cheap labour and services in countries of
destination, including those in Western Europe.

Most counter-trafficking work to date has mainly focused on
trafficking of women and children for purposes of sexual
exploitation, and yet an increasing number of cases being reported
are now those of victims of labour trafficking including men and
boys. IOM expects to see a continued increase in trafficking for
forced or exploited labour in the coming years, and would regard
agriculture and food processing, textiles, domestic and care work,
hotels and hospitality, construction, and mining, as sectors that
are particularly vulnerable to trafficking for labour exploitation.
Several of these sectors, particularly those that are labour
intensive, might not survive without cheap and unprotected labour.
IOM looks forward to supporting the work of destination countries
in fighting the demand for forced labour and trafficking for labour
exploitation. Possible measures that can help address this issue
might include:

• Ensuring that informal and unregulated work activities are
  brought within the protection of labour laws so that all workers
  enjoy the same labour rights;
• Encouraging the creation of ethical employer associations which
  will adhere to codes of conduct that guarantee protection of the
  rights of its workers, regardless of origin; and
• Developing guidelines and public awareness campaigns to assist
  consumers in identifying goods and services that have not been
  produced through exploitative and forced labour.
  

International cooperation on trafficking in persons has been
largely focused on intra-regional cooperation, often through
existing fora such as, in the case of Europe, EU bodies and the
Task Force on Organised Crime in the Baltic Sea region. But, as
noted in the EU Action Plan, with so much trafficking between
regions, it is important that we do more to bring together source
and destination countries on criminal justice and victim
protection, as we did last October in Minsk where, together with
the government of Belarus, UNICEF, and OSCE, IOM organized a
conference on 'Cooperation between Source and Destination
Countries' that brought together EU and neighbouring states, along
with others interested countries from Asia and the Gulf region. IOM
expects to continue these efforts in 2008, possibly in cooperation
with OSCE, initiating a new dialogue and cooperative partnerships
on trafficking between countries in Europe and West Africa. An
initiative of this sort would support the Ouagadougou Action Plan
(Nov 2006), which encourages states to 'enhance bilateral and
multilateral cooperation between European and African countries,
countries of origin, countries of transit, and countries of
destination, regarding identification, assistance, protection,
repatriation and reintegration of victims.

Mr. Chairman,

To conclude, there is a clear need for opening and making
accessible more legal channels of migration to prevent trafficking
and smuggling of persons. This is increasingly taking place through
sub-regional and bilateral initiatives enhancing labour migration
co-operation and mechanisms which play particular attention to the
mainstreaming of gender issues.

When these approaches are coupled with a strong legislative
framework and inspection systems of recruitment in the source
country, and access by the migrants to the protection of labour
laws in the destination country, there is a good chance of
squeezing the trafficker out of the process.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.