Colombo – IOM has trained 300 police and immigration officials in a nationwide series of counter-trafficking training workshops funded by USAID.

The workshops, which began with a three-day training of 50 trainers in Colombo in February, follow the introduction of new, comprehensive anti-trafficking legislation in 2006. By the end of July some 500 police and immigration officers in Colombo, Kalutara, Galle, Anuradhapura, Badulla, Kurunegala, Ampara and Gampaha districts will have received the training.

The one-day workshops, which IOM developed in close cooperation with the Sri Lanka Police Department, the Attorney General's Department and the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment, are designed to help law enforcement officials to identify victims of trafficking, to pursue trafficking cases and to successfully prosecute traffickers.

The workshop modules include: understanding trafficking in persons; the Sri Lanka Penal Code; causes and consequences of trafficking; methods of recruitment of victims; victim profiling and referral; investigation methods; operational planning; investigative interviewing; interviewing of vulnerable persons; communication skills; and information and criminal intelligence collection.

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For more information please contact: Passanna Gunasekera, IOM Sri Lanka, Tel: 5333432. Ext. 213, E-mail: pgunasekera@iom.int