El Salvador  - IOM and El Salvador´s National Civil Police (PNC) this weekend inaugurated a series of training sessions to be held throughout 2016 as part of efforts to strengthen the PNC’s capacity to help migrants and protect their human rights.

The sessions began with a workshop called Protection and Assistance to Migrant People in Vulnerable Conditions. It addressed, among other issues, youth migration; inter-institutional procedures regarding migrant children; interview procedures in cases of trafficking and smuggling of migrants; and the special needs of LGBTI migrants.

The official inauguration was led by PNC’s Head of Airport Unit, Division of Immigration Control, Jose Bogran Acosta, and IOM’s Mesoamerica Project Coordinator, Cecilia Ramirez.

The training will be given to various government agencies to provide practical information on referral mechanisms and to analyse the protection needs of migrants in countries of origin, transit, destination and return to provide rights-based responses.

Trainees will include frontline staff working at the border points of San Cristobal, La Hachadura, Las Chinamas, Angiatú, Acajutla, El Poy, Monsignor Romero Airport, Airport of Ilopango, El Amatillo, La Union Port, Barillas Port and Perquin.

The trainings are part of a regional program: Strengthening Capacities to Protect and Assist Migrants in Vulnerable Situations in Mesoamerica, implemented by IOM with funding from the US State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM).

For more information, please contact Alba Miriam Amaya at IOM El Salvador, Tel +503 2521-0500 Email: aamaya@iom.int