IOM Director General Visits Kuwait Saturday
Date: 25/05/2012      Time: 01:43:00 PM
 
The international organization of migration IOM Said on Friday that its Director General William Lacy Swing will begin on Saturday a three-day official visit to Kuwait - his first to that country. Swing will meet senior officials during the visit, said the IOM Spokesperson Jumbe Omari Jumbe to KUNA. Swing' s visit to Kuwait is to pay his respects to the Government of Kuwait and to express IOM's sincere appreciation for their continuing support of our global humanitarian activities," Jumbe. For the past nine years, Kuwait has been contributing USD 500,000 annually in support of IOM's global humanitarian activities. IOM also works with the Government of Kuwait to train police officers and law enforcement officials on human rights, contractual labour and prevention of human trafficking, as well as providing technical assistance to strengthen national migration management systems. Last year, IOM, under the auspices of the Kuwaiti Ministry of Social Affairs and Labour, brought together government representatives from the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) to discuss alternatives to the current sponsorship system for migrant workers. The workshop underlined the need for collaborative approaches between labour sending and receiving countries to manage temporary contractual labour. A follow up meeting, also attended by representatives of the Naif Arab University for Security Sciences, was held in April 2012. In February 2012 IOM Kuwait organized a 5-day workshop on combatting transnational crime, under the auspices of Kuwait's Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Interior. It was attended by representatives of the Ministries of Interior of Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and the Qatar Foundation for Combating Human Trafficking.