Operational Meeting for the Rregional Response to Combat Trafficking in Persons and Smuggling of Migrants Begins

The Commissioner for Human Rights, Humanitarian Action and Relations with Civil Society, Mr. Sid Ahmed Ould Bennan, supervised, Wednesday in Nouakchott, in the presence of His the General Delegate for National Solidarity and the Fight against Exclusion, Mr. Cheikh Ould Beda, the launch of the Strategic and Operational Meeting of Experts for the Regional Response to Combat Trafficking in Persons and Smuggling of Migrants along the Western Mediterranean Migration Route, organized in cooperation between the National Authority to Combat Trafficking in Persons and Smuggling of Migrants of the Office and the United Nations Office of the United Nations Office concerned with the fight against drugs and crime.

The three-day regular meeting aims to enhance regional cooperation through the exchange of experiences, good practices and intelligence, and to benefit from the policies and strategies of the participating countries.

In his speech on the occasion, the Commissioner said that the Mauritanian government, under the high directives of His Excellency the President of the Republic, has taken since 2020 important measures aimed at combating trafficking in persons and smuggling of migrants, through which it was able to achieve a qualitative leap that was the subject of national appreciation and international praise, which was reflected in Mauritania’s retention of its classification on the second level of the trafficking in persons index issued by the US State Department in its latest annual report.  As well as in the congratulations extended by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on modern forms of slavery and other international organizations.

He explained that UNHCR seeks, through the National Authority to Combat Trafficking in Persons and Smuggling of Migrants, to firmly address the phenomenon of trafficking in persons and smuggling of migrants on the one hand and to support the victims on the other, through the action plans it implements in close cooperation with the relevant ministerial sectors and civil society organizations, as well as the participatory approach adopted by the National Authority to Combat Trafficking in Persons and Smuggling of Migrants with international partners.  Foremost among them is the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

In turn, the coordinator of the United Nations in our country, Mrs. Leila Peters Yahya, said that the body, whose main mission is to ensure peace, justice and work to create a world free of crime, is implementing a number of initiatives in the sub-Saharan region, with the support of the technical and financial partners of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime within the framework of its intervention as the guardian of the United Nations Convention against Organized Crime in particular.  In the context of its efforts to strengthen the capacities of States parties to respond effectively to transnational organized crime in accordance with international practices and standards.