BANGKOK - ILO NEWS – Government Ministers, high-level officials and leaders of influential employers’ and workers’ organizations from five countries are gathering in Bangkok later this week to advise on joint-action to prevent human trafficking within the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS).

The meeting will provide the opportunity to break down old stereotypes about human trafficking and to deal frankly with the growing evidence of trafficking for labour exploitation.

Often the debate about how to tackle human trafficking revolves around better law enforcement and greater punishment for the traffickers.

But preventing human trafficking is also about having more effective cross-border migration policies and better labour protection for migrants in order to reduce the incentive to traffickers, while providing increased income and education opportunities closer to home for those at greatest risk. A sustained campaign of awareness-raising and local empowerment to counter the threat of trafficking before and during ill-prepared migration, has also proved effective at reducing the risks of exploitation.

Hosted by the Royal Thai Government’s Ministry of Labour, The 3^rd Session of the Sub-regional Advisory Committee (SURAC) of the Mekong Project to Combat Trafficking in Children and Women brings together governments, workers’ and employers’ organizations to discuss what action has been taken so far to prevent human trafficking across the GMS and to propose joint-activities to better tackle the problem in the future. More than 40 participants are expected to attend from Cambodia , China ( Yunnan Province ), Lao PDR, Thailand and Viet Nam .

The theme of the Committee Meeting is “Policy Mainstreaming: The Labour and Employment Perspective in Taking Action Against Human Trafficking.” The two-day session will begin with remarks by the ILO’s Sub-regional Director, Ms. Christine Evans-Klock followed by a keynote address to be delivered by Thailand ’s new Minister of Labour, H.E. Somsak Thepsutin.

The 3^rd session of SURAC opens at 8:45 AM , Thursday, 8^th September, 2005 , at the Amari Watergate Hotel in Bangkok , 6^th floor Ballroom B.

Individual interview requests should be made in advance to the organizer below.

For further information:

Allan Dow
ILO Mekong Sub-regional Project
to Combat Trafficking in Children and Women
Tel: 09 891 5003 or 02 288 2057
 

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