Vietnamlawmagazine

Senior officials from six countries in the Greater Mekong Subregion called for more efforts to promote regional cooperation on human trafficking prevention as they gathered on February 14 in Hanoi.

Speaking at the opening ceremony, Lieutenant General Pham Quy Ngo, Deputy Minister of Public Security, praised the region’s Coordinated Mekong Ministerial Initiative Against Trafficking (COMMIT), signed in October 2004, for supporting and assisting member countries to develop and implement national plans of action to address human trafficking and promulgate laws on anti-human trafficking.

“Vietnam is determined to mainstream COMMIT into its national plan of action,” Ngo said. “We have close cooperation with China, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand as well as non-COMMIT countries in prevention, suppression, rescue and repatriation to reduce trafficking cases.”

UN Resident Coordinator in Vietnam Pratibha Mehta praised the country’s first Anti-Human Trafficking Law, which came into effect on January 1 this year, to include men.

Besides direct and comprehensive anti-trafficking legislation, Mehta said countries should pay more attention to provide forms of social, economic, legal and livelihood assistance.

Some of the targets for COMMIT SPA III (2011-2013) include further developing anti-human trafficking data, improving research and analytical work and measuring the impact of multi-agency prevention, protection and prosecution efforts across the Mekong region.-