A new IOM programme aimed at strengthening the capacity of Georgian
officials in tackling human trafficking and smuggling has begun
with a particular focus on targeting the perpetuators of the crime.




Georgia is both a source and a transit country for women and men
destined for sexual and labour exploitation mainly in Turkey and
the United Arab Emirates. The exact scale of human trafficking from
Georgia in unknown and difficult to measure, though 125 victims
have been identified in the past four years.



Financed by the Global Opportunities Fund of the Foreign and
Commonwealth Office of the United Kingdom through the British
Embassy in Tbilisi, the project will train 130 government officials
from the judiciary, law enforcement and consular structures. This
will provide them with a greater knowledge and operational capacity
on both trafficking and smuggling.



Although Georgia is considered to be meeting the minimum efforts to
combat human trafficking by the US government in the latest of its
annual reports on the problem, there remain major challenges.



“More work needs to be done to make further headway in the
investigation and prosecution of traffickers through concerted
government action and targeted capacity building,” says Marc
Hulst, IOM’s counter-trafficking programme officer in
Georgia.



Successful prosecution of human traffickers and smugglers remains a
key issue in efforts to counter trafficking worldwide. Although the
number of investigations carried out on human trafficking cases in
Georgia have increased in recent years, successful prosecution
rates have remained low. A positive development, however, is that
since last year, more traffickers are now being punished under a
specific anti-trafficking article of the Criminal Code with lengths
of prison sentences increasing.



Partly in a bid to tackle the still low prosecution rates, IOM will
organize meetings between Georgian and Turkish law enforcement
authorities to strengthen cooperation and to further elaborate
bi-lateral anti-crime cooperation mechanisms.



IOM will also conduct two missions to Abkhazia and South Ossetia
for the first time to assess the scale and trends in human
trafficking and smuggling and to discuss with the local authorities
and civil society efforts to address identified issues.



This new programme builds on IOM’s extensive experience in
working with the Georgian government on combating human trafficking
through research, ongoing preventive information campaigns, the
training of the law enforcement officials and the provision of
assistance for the safe return and reintegration of trafficking
victims.



For more information please contact



Marc Hulst

IOM Tbilisi

Tel: + 995 77 52 52 88

Email: "mailto:marc@iom.ge">marc@iom.ge