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For information on IOM activities in New Zealand, contact:

International Organization for Migration (IOM)
Country Office with Coordinating Function, Canberra (Australia, New Zealand, Oceania and Timor)
 4th Floor, CPA Australia Building
161 London Circuit
Canberra ACT 2601
Australia

Tel: +61 2 62 67 66 00
Fax: +61 2 62 57 37 43

IOM Worldwide


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Beware of fraudulent offers of migration assistance in the internet or email marketing.

Individuals considering migrating for whatever purpose or destination should take extreme caution in dealing with internet offers or email marketing in light of recent surge in fraudulent schemes.

IOM Today

An intergovernmental organization established in 1951, IOM is committed to the principle that humane and orderly migration benefits migrants and society.

  • 146 Members and 98 observers
  • More than 450 field locations
  • More than 7,800 staff working on more than 2,700 projects
  • More than US$ 1.3 billion expenditures in 2011

Migrant Processing & Assistance

IOM provides assistance to facilitate migration under organized and regular migration schemes, and helps improve existing processes to make it easier, more efficient and reliable for both migrants and the governments concerned. These services, tailored to meet the specific needs of each programme, are provided at different stages of the process: information and application, interview and approval, and post-approval.

Similar assistance is also provided to experts participating in international technical cooperation activities, to scholarship holders and students studying abroad and, in some cases, to their dependents. An important feature of migrant processing and assistance is the preparation of migrants and refugees in their move to a new country through pre-departure and cultural orientation. The better prepared they are, and the more realistic their expectations, the smoother and quicker they can settle into their new community. And the quicker they can settle in, the more cost-effective it is for the host government, for example in terms of social services.

Migrant Training

An important feature of migrant processing and assistance is the preparation of migrants and refugees in their move to a new country through pre-departure and cultural orientation. The better prepared they are, and the more realistic their expectations, the smoother and quicker they can settle into their new community. And the quicker they can settle in, the more cost-effective it is for the host government, for example in terms of social services.

From January to December 2009, a total of 56,637 migrants (consisting of refugees, humanitarian entrants, labour migrants, immigrants, family reunification cases and others) attended one of IOM’s migrant training sessions; this figure is 12 per cent higher than in the previous year.

Seventy-eight per cent of the participants were resettlement cases, while the remaining 22 per cent included temporary foreign workers bound for Canada, immigrant-visa holders bound for the United States, and dependents of T-visa applicants.1

Women made up 45 per cent of the participants in 2009; the drop from 49 per cent in 2008 resulted from an increased number of male labour migrants from Guatemala bound for Canada.

IOM carried out migrant training activities in 43 countries on four continents, with participants representing 47 nationalities. Significant training numbers came out of the Middle East, Guatemala, Nepal, Thailand and the Philippines. Nepal had the most training participants, with over 11,000 resettlement cases in attendance in 2009.

IOM anticipates that pre-departure orientation will soon be offered to refugees bound for several new resettlement destinations in 2010, with curriculum development and preparations for training of trainers already underway.

1 Dependents of victims of trafficking granted settlement in the United States. A T-visa is a US visa issued to foreign victims of severe forms of human trafficking, allowing them to stay in the United States if they agree to assist the authorities in investigations and prosecutions, and if they can demonstrate that leaving the US would subject them to extreme hardship and harm.