Migrant Smuggling

Afghanistan is second only to Syria in the number of refugees originating from within its borders in recent years. Officially, about 2.5 million refugees have left Afghanistan in the almost four decades of this country being marked by hostilities and terror. The unofficial figure for the number of people who have fled exceeds six million. The majority of them are currently in the neighbouring countries of Pakistan and Iran as well as in Turkey. It is in this context that the first information centre for potential migrants was opened in Kabul, the Afghan capital.

The Brazil Visa Application Centre (BVAC) is a centre in Port-au-Prince exclusively dedicated to Haitian citizens applying for special humanitarian permanent visas (VIPER), which aims to ensure a safe, dignified and legal migration channel to Brazil.

The BVAC centre was created in 2015 as a mean to increase the processing of humanitarian permanent visas in response to the concern of the growing number of people travelling to Brazil irregularly.

REFRAME will contribute to taking forward the ILO’s Fair Recruitment Initiative, which was launched in 2014 and is a global multi-stakeholder’s Fair Recruitment Initiative to prevent human trafficking and forced labour; protect the rights of workers, including migrant workers, from abusive and fraudulent recruitment and placement processes; and to reduce the cost of labour migration and enhance development outcomes for migrant workers and their families, as well as for countries of origin and destination.

In the area of combating illegal migration, the smuggling of migrants and human trafficking, the Egyptian Government ihas implemented laws to combat trafficking and Smuggling, including Law no 64 of 2010 on Combating Trafficking in Persons and law no 82 of 2016 on Combating Illegal Migration. Egypt has also implemented programs to raise awareness regarding these crimes while focusing on the vulnerable situations confronting women and children, and the protection of victims.

In 2016, Egypt launched a ten-year national strategy on combating illegal migration under the auspices of the National Committee for Combating and Preventing Illegal Migration.

In Morocco, national consultations were held in September 2017 with civil society and diaspora representivatives, scholars and researchers, represensatives of the private sector and public institutions. These national consultations have enabled Morocco to come with a consolidated contribution to the Global Compact, the "Recommendations of the Kingdom of Morocco on the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration."

The program aims to improve migration management in the region, and in particular to address the trafficking and smuggling of migrants within and from the Horn of Africa. The priority is to strengthen the rights of migrants and protect them better from violence, abuse and exploitation. The aim is to make migration in the region easier and safer.

The program’s activities are being implemented on four levels:

The Rabat Process is a migration dialogue that was founded in July 2006 in Rabat to bring together African and European countries to discuss and develop pragmatic and balanced approaches to dealing with migration and development issues. 

On 29 November 2017, COMMIT (an inter-governmental body of the Governments of Cambodia, China, Lao, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, with UNDP’s UN-ACT project serving as Secretariat), at the 12th COMMIT Senior Officials Meeting, finalized a preamble to support ILO’s General Principles and Operational Guidelines on Fair Recruitment.

In July 2007, the ASEAN Foreign Ministers established the ASEAN Committee to Implement the Declaration on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers. Part of the role of this committee has been to strengthen information services to educate migrant workers about their rights, access to services and immigration requirements.