UNHCR Seeks More Trafficking Prevention Efforts

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has raised the alarm that the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic have increased the risk of refugees and internally displaced and stateless people to trafficking and exploitation.

Joining the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in observing the World Day against Trafficking in Persons, the UNHCR called for more support for trafficking prevention and response efforts.

Development Diaries understands that the ongoing conflict and displacement also adds to the risk of refugees resorting to desperate and dangerous journeys in search of safety, falling prey to criminal smuggling networks.

The Assistant High Commissioner for Protection at UNHCR, Gillian Triggs, said, ‘Enforced measures to control the pandemic and worsening socio-economic conditions are having serious implications for those forcibly displaced. Those now faced with lost livelihoods and abject poverty can be targets for traffickers that are unscrupulously exploiting and profiteering from their vulnerabilities.

‘Away from home and with varying accessibility to essential services and social protection networks in host countries, refugees and internally displaced people are among those most at risk. Covid-19-related impacts ranging from movement restrictions to the closure or reduced availability of essential help and support services may confine many victims, limiting their ability to escape or seek help’.

Triggs also said that efforts should be intensified to protect those at risk and also provide support to victims and to ensure that perpetrators are brought to justice.

‘Governments and humanitarian actors need to work together to ensure that programmes to assist victims of trafficking are available and accessible to displaced people and that victims of trafficking who may be in need of international protection are able to access asylum’, he added.

Source: UNHCR

Photo source: UNHCR/John Wessels

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