There is a three day summit taking place in Johannesburg, South Africa this week on Combating Human Trafficking and Illegal Immigration.
The objectives of the summit are to:
- Brainstorm on effective strategies, proactive and pragmatic approaches
- To reduce and prevent human trafficking
- To raise awareness on the harmful effects of human trafficking
- Provide an opportunity to share information, ideas and experiences on best practices to combat and monitor human trafficking more especially with Africa now hosting World cup Soccer in 2010
- To expose the antics of human traffickers and address the issues of victim support services
- To sensitize the government on the need to devote sufficient resources and the political will to combat human trafficking
Debbie Beadle from ECPAT UK has gone down this week to speak at the conference.
The topics for discussion are as follows:
Wednesday 24 March 2010
- Keynote Address: International Policy Priorities to Combat Human Trafficking;
- Human Trafficking in Member Regions: Developing Integrated Action;
- Harmonising means of combating illegal immigration and illegal employment and improving the relevant means of control;
- The Human Trafficking Experience in the Great Lakes Region of East Africa;
- Comparative Case Study: Regional vs. National Approach towards Human Trafficking in Africa
Thursday 25 March 2010
- Keynote Address: Protecting Victims of Human Trafficking: Raising Awareness of International and Cross-Border Issues;
- Communicating Human Trafficking: From understanding to action;
- Child Trafficking: Impacts and Safeguarding children trafficked to Europe;
- Monitoring the implementation of instruments adopted by the Council concerning illegal immigration, readmission, the unlawful employment of the
third-country nationals and cooperation in the implementation of expulsion orders; - The threat represented by the Soccer World Cup to Women and Children in South Africa;
- Evaluation of anti-trafficking and victim rehabilitation programmes;
- Panel Discussion: Discussion on the Economic Recession and its impact on illegal immigration
Friday 26 March 2010
Workshop: Human Trafficking: Enhancing Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships and International Cooperation
I would love to go to one of these summits one day. I guess I need to keep an eye open for when they are taking place in London.
I suspect the fundamental solution to this and other problems on the African continent is the eventual eradication of governmental corruption. How that might be achieved is anyone's guess.
ReplyDeleteHey Jim. Thanks for popping by. This conference was held in South Africa but this is not simply an African problem. Men, women and children are kidnapped, trafficked, tricked and sold in countries all over the world including the emerging democracies in Europe. I'm reading a book at the moment about girls in Russia who are offered "jobs" in London and land up being trapped into prostitution here. We have forced domestic servitude here too. That has to do with poverty and wanting a better life overseas; organised crime and lack of police resources to tackle the problem. Oh, and the disbanding of the trafficking task force. But do you see a direct link between government corruption in the UK and the fact that we have slaves here?
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