A WORKSHOP aimed at strengthening cooperation among law enforcement officials in the fight against human trafficking in selected border areas will be held in Nay Pyi Taw from November 22 to 24.

The workshop will be organised by the Ministry of Home Affairs, United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and UN Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking in the Greater Mekong Sub-region (UNIAP).

The workshop will be part of ongoing efforts to expand the scope of UNODC’s Border Liaison Offices, which currently provide mechanisms to stem the cross-border trade in illegal drugs, to include the fight against human trafficking.

Participants in the workshop will include law enforcement officers from border areas, government officials and representatives of UN agencies and international non-government organisations involved in trafficking issues in Myanmar.

Meanwhile, senior government officials from Myanmar and China met in Kunming in southern China from November 5 to 9 to discuss cross-border cooperation to counter human trafficking.

The meeting was organised by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Asia Regional Trafficking in Persons Project (ARTIP) and UNIAP.

At the meeting, delegates agreed on a four-year bilateral cooperation framework and a cooperation work plan for 2007 that will help the two countries achieve commitments made under the Coordinated Mekong Ministerial Initiative against Trafficking (COMMIT).

COMMIT was signed by six countries in the Greater Mekong Sub-region – Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam – on October 29, 2004, in Yangon.

It was the first sub-regional memorandum of understanding on human trafficking in Asia and the Pacific. It contains 34 specific commitments or articles in the areas of policy and cooperation; preventative measures; legal frameworks; law enforcement and justice; protection; recovery and reintegration; and mech-anisms for monitoring and implementation.