Pacific Immigration Directors Conference - Smuggling Trafficking and Irregular Migration

Brief Description

The government through the Ministry of Internal Affairs in 2010 hosted a two day Pacific Immigration Directors Conference (PDIC) in Port Vila in order to establish a common understanding and consistency in addressing issues and process on people smuggling and trafficking and irregular migration, with the them "Consolidating PDIC status as a valuable entity." It was attended by 45 countries from the Pacific countries. During the conference, the PDIC members had agreed on the need to begin working at a regional level on ways to address the issues of people smuggling, human trafficking, and irregular migration.

The participants also agreed to encourage active participation in the PIDC Annual Collection Plan process and to raise their standards of national data collection. The PDIC was acknowledged to be the appropriate forum to begin consultative process in the pacific region. The conference workshop also reaffirmed the need to strengthen the collection and sharing of information and intelligence at the regional and national level to better understand irregular migration trends throughout the region, and to successfully combat people smuggling and trafficking networks.