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Event Detail

2nd Ministerial Regional Conference on People Smuggling, Trafficking in Persons and Related Transnational Crime, Bali, Indonesia

Event Details

The second Bali Regional Ministerial Conference on people smuggling, trafficking in persons and related transnational crime was held on April 29-30, 2003. The conference was a follow-up to the first Bali Regional Ministerial Conference on February 26-28, 2002. Ministers from 31 countries and over 300 experts met to discuss the increasingly complex migration management challenges facing governments in Asia and the Pacific. The conference was hosted by Australia and Indonesia.

The purpose of the conference was to find points on which Asian/ Pacific countries could agree in terms of how best to tackle people smuggling and human trafficking problems in the region. Countries agreed that tightening domestic laws on smuggling and trafficking was a necessary step. People smuggling and human trafficking are not criminal offences in every Asian country. It was agreed that more needs to be done to improve law enforcement, legal structures, and improve cooperation between agencies - intelligence and law enforcement agencies, for example. ( See http://www.iom.int, and http://goasiapacific.com/specials/journeys/conference_ap_dobell28.htm)