Papua New Guinea - This week Papua New Guinea (PNG) gazetted the first counter-trafficking legislation making smuggling and trafficking in persons a criminal offence in the country and creating a legal base to protect victims.

IOM played an instrumental role in the development of the law, drawing on global knowledge and experience to advise the PNG Department of Justice and Attorney General on a continuous basis, providing recommendations on formulation of the Act and its application. 

IOM’s Chief of Mission in PNG, George Gigauri said; “This is a ground-breaking achievement for Papua New Guinea, as this law, the first of its kind, lays the foundation for a wholesale counter-trafficking effort in the country.”

The Counter-Trafficking Law will give tools to the PNG government to create a systematic procedure to identify victims of trafficking among vulnerable populations, such as foreign migrants in the logging and mining sectors, foreign and local women in the commercial sex industry, and local children from tribal areas.

This is a great advance in the country’s counter-trafficking legal framework, given that the US State Department’s 2014 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report last month placed PNG in the group of countries whose governments do not currently fully comply with minimum international counter trafficking standards.

IOM has been implementing its counter-trafficking programme in PNG since 2010 with funding from the United States. The main activities include: strengthening the legal framework, laying the foundation for a national referral mechanism; raising public awareness of the issue; and capacity building of the government and civil society.

IOM has also supported policymakers in developing a Trafficking in Persons National Action Plan and strengthened the capacity of law enforcement agencies and judicial bodies to identify trafficking cases and act on them.

For more information please contact

Vanessa Smith
IOM Papua New Guinea
Email: vsmith@iom.int