Sri Lanka, Australia and regional countries have stepped up cooperation to stop people smuggling by air.
A regional meeting co-hosted by Sri Lanka and Australia in Colombo on May 10 and 11 brought together immigration officials from around the region to share detailed information about criminal activity, detecting fraudulent documents and prevention of irregular movements of people by air.
The workshop – the Bali Process Ad Hoc Group Workshop on Irregular Movements by Air - reflected growing recognition that irregular migration and people smuggling are global and regional problems which need to be tackled through cooperation with other countries.
moreParticipants included representatives from Australia, Afghanistan, Burma, Canada, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Maldives, Pakistan, Thailand, and the United Kingdom, as well as the International Organisation for Migration and the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Countries agreed to improve information sharing between national immigration agencies and build capacity to combat illegal movements. Information sharing arrangements already in place in Sri Lanka, Australia and Thailand will be expanded within the region, enhancing capacity to detect passport, visa and identity fraud and other techniques being used by people smugglers and other criminals to circumvent border controls.
Regional cooperation to develop a lasting regional response to irregular' movements within the region has been building via the Bali Process. At a ministerial level meeting in late March, Bali Process countries agreed on a regional cooperation framework to strengthen cooperative arrangements within the region to support orderly migration and disrupt people smuggling networks.
Based on this regional cooperation framework, the Prime Ministers of Australia and Malaysia jointly announced on 7 May that from now on asylum seekers arriving in Australia irregularly by sea will be transferred to Malaysia and will not stay in Australia. The arrangement is designed to stop the exploitative business of people smuggling, which profits from putting the lives of vulnerable people at risk.
The Island
