MYANMAR plans to enact a law against human trafficking by the middle of the year, a senior official from the Ministry of Home Affairs said last week.

Police Lieutenant-Colonel Rallyan Mone, the head of the ministry’s Anti-Trafficking Unit, said the Trafficking in Persons Law was prepared in accordance with the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organised Crime.

The committee that drafted the law was comprised of representatives from the ministry and other government departments, he said. The law would ensure that the rights of trafficked victims were protected and that traffickers received the maximum penalty, Police Lieutenant-Colonel Rallyan Mone said. It would also allow law enforcement agencies to freeze the property of traffickers and their accomplices.

Last year, 40 police officials were trained for his unit with the assistance of the Australian government under the Asia Regional Cooperation to Prevent People Trafficking project that also involves Cambodia, Laos and Thailand.

He said specially trained police were needed to deal with trafficking. One of their responsibilities was to ensure that the confidentiality and dignity of trafficked victims was respected.

Police Lieutenant Colonel Rallyan Mone said the project had also funded an operational procedures manual that would be used by the anti-trafficking units of the four countries to streamline the coordination and cooperation among them. The four countries had also agreed to establish hot lines, he said.

The ministry established the Preventive Working Committee on Trafficking in Persons in July 2002.

From July 2002 to the end of 2004, the committee arrested 939 people who were involved in 474 trafficking cases. He said 485 traffickers had been sentenced to prison, of whom two had received life terms and 85 had received sentences of more than 10 years.

During the same period, the committee prevented 2629 people, including 1225 girls, from being trafficked to neighbouring countries.