Moldovan consular officers of 10 diplomatic missions in the main destination countries of victims of trafficking gathered recently in Chisinau for an anti-trafficking course focused on profiling and assisting victims of trafficking. The course was organized by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and was attended by Moldovan consular officers and representatives of diplomatic missions from Italy, Israel, Turkey, UK, Russian Federation, Portugal, Austria, Bulgaria, Belgium and Ireland.
The training, organized in cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration of the Republic of Moldova, is part of a capacity building project targeting the staff of the consular department of the above Ministry, funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The project builds upon and complements IOM's past and present activities in preventing irregular migration and trafficking, as well as promoting legal migration through capacity development of relevant Moldovan government institutions.
At the very beginning of the training, the IOM consultant Peter Bryant concluded that "though Moldovan consular officials were aware about the trafficking of human beings, many of them did not realize the complexity of this issue." According to the IOM Moldova Chief of Mission, Martin Andreas Wyss, Moldovan consular staff will be provided assistance in the future to develop migrant community networks in the main destination countries of victims of trafficking. At the same time, they will be assisted in information dissemination and data collection that will engage the Moldovan Diaspora in migration management policy development and implementation.
Speaking about the necessity to involve the representatives of the Moldovan Diplomatic Missions overseas in such trainings, IOM Chief of Mission mentioned that "the consular officials are on the front line in the fight against human trafficking. They deal on a daily basis with situations of human exploitation of Moldovan migrants and have to be helped to carry out this very important task in the best possible professional way."
