Ms Pratibha Mehta, Vietnam-based UN coordinator; representatives of the diplomatic agencies, international organizations and international observers also attended the event.

Lieutenant-General Pham Quy Ngo, Vice-Minister of Public Office, deputy head of the National Steering Committee on prevention of human trafficking was on hand and took the floor.

The initiative of the Minister-level coordination in prevention of human trafficking of in the Mekong Sub-region (called in short COMMIT Process) was launched by the Governments of Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar and China in late 2003 with the focal point being the formulation of the region-level agreement on prevention of human trafficking.

With the theme “Sustained Unity and Cooperation”, SOM-8 will concentrate on assessing the results of implementing the action plan of the Mekong Sub-region on prevention of human trafficking in phase 2 (2008-2010) and discussing and perfecting the plan in phase 3 (2012-2013).

SOM-8

The participants in the conference also discussed the issues concerning the strengthening the dialogue with other forums in prevention of human trafficking and the sustainability of expanded COMMIT after 2013; discussed, perfected, unified and recommended with the Governments of 6 countries to sign the Joint Declaration with a view to reaffirming again the cooperation in prevention of human trafficking.

Speaking at the conference, Lieutenant-General Pham Quy Ngo pointed out that COMMIT is the process of unique, dynamic and creative character only found in the Southeast Asian region through a dialogue forum on policy, with the multi-sectoral approach, focusing only on prevention of human trafficking, linking the plan of the region-level response in order to support and help the countries to resolve in a fundamental way the human trafficking.

After 7 years of implementation, COMMIT has helped push ahead all the member countries to build, promulgate and formulate the law on prevention of human trafficking and put to use the multi-sectoral training materials on prevention of human trafficking; signed a lot of agreements and memoranda of understanding on bilateral cooperation in this area; taken a lot of measures to guard against the human trafficking, launched many information dissemination campaigns, built and passed all the criteria for determining the victims, coordinated to save, investigate and arrest criminals, repatriated and supported the victims so that they could reintegrate themselves with their communities, bringing about practical results to each country and the region.

With a viewpoint of integrating the implementation of the COMMIT Plan with the National Program on Prevention of Human Trafficking, in the past 7 years, the ministries and branches of Vietnam have coordinated with the UNIAP Secretariat (the UN Inter-agency Project on Human Trafficking), international organizations, the non-Governmental organizations to deploy over 200 activities of coordination on prevention of human trafficking; and the most prominent of all is the approval by the National Assembly of the Law on Prevention of Human Trafficking; the launch by the Government of the National Program on Prevention of Human Trafficking in the 2004-2010 period and the 2011-2015 period. Vietnam has closely coordinated with Cambodia, China, Laos and Thailand and the countries outside COMMIT to prevent and arrest criminals, save and repatriate victims, making a contribution to checking the increase of this form of crimes.

Following the SOM-8 conference, the 3rd Ministerial meeting (IMM3) of the Mekong Sub-region countries on prevention of human trafficking will also be held in Hanoi on February 16, 2012./.