KUWAIT: A conference on ways to eliminate human trafficking opened yesterday at Kuwait's Marina Hotel. The 'Workers' Rights, International Treaties, Migration Organizations and Eliminating Human Trafficking' conference, an event jointly organized by the Kuwait Institute for Judicial and Legal Studies (KIJLS) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), is scheduled to last until Wednesday 23. The conference is being held under the auspices ofKuwait's justice minister Rashid Al-Hamad, who is also the country's Deputy Prime Minister for Legal Affairs and Minister of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs. The KIJLS is a department of the justice ministry.
In his inaugural speech at the opening ceremony, KIJLS director Jamal Al-Shamri stressed the dangers posed by human trafficking not just to the victims but to the international community at large. "Human trafficking is increasing and is usually connected to the smuggling of immigrants," he said. "The victims of this illegal act now number in the millions, with the number of illegal immigrants crossing international borders reaching 800,000 people per year.
Human trafficking also adversely affects the labor markets of the countries affected, added Al-Shamri. "Human trafficking is a breach of human rights, and leads to social alienation, harming general health, depriving nations of their manpower, damaging workers' rights and even supporting organized crime.
The senior judicial official continued, "All these reasons require the coordination of efforts from all international supervisory institutions. We should fight this phenomenon to eliminate its effects. We have coordinated with the IOM to establish a comprehensive strategy through organizing training programs and holding symposiums and conferences to examine the various aspects of human trafficking, smuggling migrants, and increasing knowledge about workers' basic rights. These rights include the freedom to choose a job, the conditions of time and location to do this job in, and the legal tools to deal with and organize it.
The following speaker, Iman Areeqat, the head of IOM's Kuwait chapter, said that the primary objective of the conference is "to strengthen the abilities of the Kuwaiti judiciary to protect the contractual rights of expatriate workers through providing them [the judiciary] with training and technical support concerning international immigration law." During the conference, Areeqat explained, the delegates "will discuss subjects such as the new challenges and cases of immigration and international ad hoc committees and international courts, as well as protecting workers' rights and many other issues.
The delegates attending the conference range from judges to prosecutors, legal consultants, and prosecuting attorneys, with a number travelling from other countries to attend the event, including France, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain, the UAE, Syria, Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia and Sudan.
During the conference, Areeqat explained, "four international experts and a local expert will be presenting lectures and exchanging their experience with the participants. We believe that judges are extremely interested in this issue. The IOM is also cooperating with the Kuwaiti government by supplying it with international experience and by executing projects with other ministries and public institutions.
The senior official explained that the IOM had organized 10 events to discuss various aspects of workers' rights and migration in recent months, saying, "We've held conferences, symposiums, workshops, and lectures that discussed different subjects such as expatriate laborers on temporary contract in the GCC countries, the Kafeel [sponsorship] system and the challenges facing it, in addition to some training courses.
Source: kuwaittimes.net
Kuwait hosts conference on ways to eliminate human trafficking » Kuwait Times Website
No comments:
Post a Comment