Call to strengthen internal controls
FIJI’S extensive porous border with a huge maritime space makes it vulnerable to trafficking persons as a transit and destination country for men, women and children, says Women, Children and Poverty Alleviation Minister Mereseini Vuniwaqa.
Mrs Vuniwaqa said the country provided the only air link interconnectivity across the region.
She said countering human trafficking through the strengthening of our internal controls would effectively reduce the illegal movement of people to other countries within the region that transit through Fiji.
She said the limited data on trafficking in persons in the Pacific made it difficult to ascertain the real impact of human smuggling in the region. “As such it is only prudent that we must establish a robust system now that counteracts the trafficking of persons before it escalates to a scale that we cannot respond effectively to, if at all,” she said while officiating during the Human Trafficking and Child Exploitation workshop at the Naviti Resort in Sigatoka yesterday.
Mrs Vuniwaqa said in 2011, a National Action Plan was formulated by the Department of Immigration and was launched with the overall objective of eradicating people trafficking, bringing offenders to justice and offering protection and assistance.
“I also understand that we have had a number of national workshops on human trafficking in the recent past aimed at further elucidating our national response to this issue.”