Honduras - IOM this week took part in a Symposium on Migration, Return and Reintegration Co-Responsibility held in the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa.

The event, organized in collaboration with the Mexican Embassy and the Honduran Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (SRECI), aimed to promote initiatives focused on preventing irregular migration, promoting migrants’ rights and wellbeing, and the inclusion of returnees in their communities of origin.

Participants included Honduras’ Deputy Foreign Minister for Consular and Migration Affairs of Honduras, María Andrea Matamoros; Ambassador of Mexico in Honduras, Dolores Jimenez; the Chairman of the Committee on Migration Issues of the Permanent Mission of Mexico to the Organization of American States (OAS), Daniel Chamber; the National Director of the Strategy We are Mexicans of the National Institute of Mexico (INM), Gabriela Garcia Acoltzí; and representatives of the foreign ministries of El Salvador and Guatemala. IOM’s Chief of Mission to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, Jorge Peraza Breedy, also took part.

The meeting provided a platform for the discussion of issues including inter-sectoral coordination on migration management, and measures for the safe return and reintegration of migrants, specifically for those in vulnerable situations.

Attendees also discussed the growing challenges of migration in the Northern Triangle of Central America and Mexico, and the impact this phenomenon has had on the development of the countries of origin, transit and destination.

The symposium was organized as part of an IOM project: Improving Care, Case Identification and Protection Services for Migrants in the Honduran Consular Service, supported by the IOM Development Fund.

During the event, IOM delivered 64,000 copies of its Migrant’s Guide to the Honduran Directorate for Migrant Protection. This document provides basic information on the rights and responsibilities of mobile populations, lists programmes to support returned migrants, and warns of the dangers of irregular migration.

The guide, which will be distributed both at Honduran embassies and consulates abroad, and at Reception Centres for returning migrants, was developed as part of IOM’s USAID-funded project: Comprehensive Assistance to Families and Migrant Unaccompanied Children Returned to The Northern Triangle of Central America.

According to the Social Sector National Information Centre of Honduras (CENISS), from January 2014 to the first half of 2016, some 95,250 migrants were returned to Honduras. Of these, some 12.5 percent had been returned more than once.

For further information, please contact Karen Arita, IOM Honduras, Tel: +504 22377460, Email: karita@iom.int. Or Alba Miriam Amaya, IOM El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, Tel: +503 25210556, Email: aamaya@iom.int