Rédaction Africa Links 24 with L’Opinion
Published on 2024-03-09 16:32:00
The Tunisian capital hosted, on March 7 and 8, 2024, the launching ceremony of the Human Trafficking Victim Identification Kit in Lebanon, the first of its kind in the country. The event was attended by the Minister of Justice of Lebanon, and the Coordinator of the Neighbourhood Policy with the South of the Mediterranean and Executive Director of the North-South Centre of the Council of Europe, along with an official delegation from the Kingdom consisting of representatives from the National Commission for Coordination of Measures to Combat and Prevent Human Trafficking (CNCLT), the General Directorate of National Security, and the Directorate of Customs and Indirect Taxes Administration.
Organized as part of the joint initiative between the European Union and the Council of Europe “Southern Program V”, this meeting also saw the participation of representatives from the Ministry of Justice of Tunisia, as well as delegations from Malta and Portugal.
The launched kit includes reference documents as a working tool to help unify the vision of all stakeholders in detecting human trafficking. It aims to enable professionals from government and non-governmental agencies and institutions, as well as civil society actors, to monitor human trafficking offenses and identify potential victims by helping to initiate the process of recognizing them as victims and providing them with the necessary assistance and protection required by relevant international and national laws.
Furthermore, in the spirit of sharing experiences and best practices, the represented countries were briefed on the progress made by the Kingdom of Morocco since the adoption in March 2023 of the national plan to combat human trafficking 2023-2030 and the National Referral Mechanism for victims – MNR, especially regarding the territorial implementation of the MNR and the pilot experiences launched by Morocco in the first year of implementing its strategic action plan 2023-2026.
It is worth noting that Morocco is the second country in the region to have established an MNR and has positioned itself as a pioneering experience along with Tunisia in the region in the fight against human trafficking.
Also, during this meeting, with the launch of the Kit, a HELP course on Combating Human Trafficking, targeting professionals responsible for identification, was also released. Another course on Combating Violence against Women will be launched on the same day and will include intersections between gender-based violence and human trafficking. In addition to the launch, technical workshops will be organized on data protection and on victim detection and identification units at borders to explore possibilities for regional and sub-regional cooperation in detecting and identifying victims.
The second day was marked by the work of two technical workshops, focusing respectively on victim detection and identification, data protection through the experience of Lebanon, and on Detection Offices at borders with a case study from Portugal.
Read the original article(French) on L’Opinion
