Transcript
IOANE ALAMA: For the most part we've mainly witnessed Pacific Island countries being used as a transit country. With persons being trafficked and smuggled mainly for destination countries for example Australia, New Zealand and the United States of America. In some instances the Pacific Island countries are the destination country, especially when we're talking about persons being trafficked for labour purposes. So for example we have reports of cases where logging companies and mining companies and also more recently increasing reports regarding fishing companies exploiting labour. In that sense we have witnessed more and more countries becoming destination countries. But again, each country has its own individual problems and issues and they have to try and develop national activities and processes to find a way to combat both human trafficking and people smuggling.
JENNY MEYER: For people who are not kind of in this world all the time, what's the difference between what you're calling human trafficking and people smuggling?
IA: The main difference is exploitation. When we're talking about trafficking there is always an essence of exploitation. The person being trafficked, there's a form of exploitation, whether its labour, forced labour, in some cases there's servitude, we've heard of sexual exploitation in terms of prostitution. And also more recently we're hearing references to slavery, or practices similar to slavery. For the smuggling of migrants this isn't the case. This is just instances where for financial and material gain one person procures the illegal entry or illegal residence of another person into another country, which means crossing of borders.
JM: What are you hoping will come out of the workshop that you've just had?
IA: The main aim and objective of this is to try and develop a regional immigration framework to coordinate national and regional activities to combat human trafficking and people smuggling. So for example the prevention, we're looking at aspects of prevention of human trafficking and people smuggling. The detection, investigation and prosecution of human trafficking and people smuggling. The protection also of trafficked persons. And also one key component is looking at national and international coordination. So when we talk about human trafficking and people smuggling there are a number of agencies that are involved. For example immigration and customs at the border in terms of identifying and detecting smuggled migrants and trafficked persons. And you also have agencies such as police and labour, who are also working in-country to undertake investigations. What we're hoping to do is to develop an immigration framework that allows us to contribute to combatting these two types of transnational crimes. And from there it will also allow the PIDC as an organisation to engage with development partners and partner organisations to try and build the capacity and the legal frameworks and the procedural frameworks of our member countries to provide an effective response to combat human trafficking and people smuggling.
JM: What about for the public? What should people do if they're really worried about maybe something they see going on in their own community that they're worried about what's happening to the people involved, what should they do?
IA: I guess it goes back to the old saying of 'see something, say something'. And in our discussions last week there were reports of remote communities in some countries being targetted. These were unconfirmed reports. So from our perspective, one of the key areas of our framework is actually raising awareness in local communities about the dangers, potential dangers of human trafficking and people smuggling and how that might affect them locally. So we foresee that one of the key components of the framework will be trying to make sure that members of the more remote communities of the Pacific Island countries are aware of the possible dangers and are on the look out and again have quick access to government support in terms of responding to potential threats.
