In Senegal, a regional conference on the fight against human trafficking and the smuggling of migrants ended this Thursday, May 12. For three days, security and justice officials from 18 African and European countries met to take stock of the commitments of the “Niamey Declaration”. Adopted in 2018, it aims to improve coordination between States, for example in terms of data collection or mutual legal assistance.
With our correspondent in Dakar, Charlotte Idrac
More and more “recruitments ” on Facebook, Skype and other social networks: the conference particularly insisted on the fight against migrant smuggling “ in its cyber version “. Amado De Andrès, representative of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) for West Central Africa: “ UNODC with Niger and the Member States of the region is beginning to work on a prevention campaign targeting women, but also children, and is also working to identify practices for capturing future victims of human trafficking. The campaign is already online. »
Regional cooperation
The repatriation in March hundreds of Niger nationals since Dakar is a recent example of good cooperation between States, according to the director of the Police of the Air and the Borders of Senegal, Mame Seydou Ndour. ” These people were victims of trafficking in the sense that they left their country of origin and were taken to Senegal for the purpose of begging. It really is exploitation. The Nigerien government itself took charge of the return of these people “, explains Mame Seydou Ndour.
Among the recommendations adopted, the integration of new members to the follow-up mechanism of the Niamey Declaration. The participants notably mentioned Benin, Togo and Ghana.
Mame Seydou Ndour: the rate of departure of Senegalese to Europe “has dropped by almost 85%” since 2020