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Chinese, European Criminal Investigation Specialists Meet to Coordinate Anti-Trafficking Efforts

China – The UN Migration Agency (IOM) has organized a two-day seminar in Sanya, Hainan island, on “Facilitating of Exchanges & Establishment of Networks between Chinese & European Anti-Trafficking Criminal Investigation Specialists.”

The meeting, which started today, brought together officials from China’s Ministry of Public Security’s Office of Combatting Trafficking, provincial officials, and experts from EUROPOL, the European Union (EU) Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation, together with investigators from Germany, Spain, Denmark, United Kingdom and Switzerland.

The seminar was part of the EU-China Dialogue on Migration Mobility Support Project (MMSP) and was to designed to enhance knowledge exchange on techniques and procedures to standardize operations and policy frameworks related to counter-trafficking.

Delegates reviewed relevant legislation and trafficking investigation case studies, with a particular focus on victim assistance and protection, and the role of international cooperation in prosecuting trafficking offences.

The meeting was the third MMSP activity devoted to counter trafficking, highlighting the importance attached to the issue by the Chinese authorities. In 2016 and 2017, IOM under MMSP organized workshops in Nanjing and Nanning on international standards for identifying and assisting victims of trafficking. Ministry of Public Security and Provincial Security Bureau officials attended from several provinces from around China.

A EUROPOL expert also took part in the Nanning workshop, highlighting the developments in collaboration between the EU and China, which led to the signing of an Agreement on Strategic Cooperation between Europol and the Ministry of Public Security in April 2017.

China has been increasingly proactive in combating human trafficking. According to the Ministry of Public Security, in 2014 there were 978 prosecutions of cases involving trafficking in women and children. Public security authorities rescued over 30,000 women and some 13,000 children.

China is also involved in an on-going legislative reform process that recently led the Supreme People’s Court to issue a key interpretation of Chinese trafficking law covering the trafficking of foreign women into some regions of China for forced marriage and prostitution.  

For further information, please contact Etienne Micallef at the IOM Office in China, Tel: + 86 138 1120 9875; Email: emicallef@iom.int