BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 17
By Jeila Aliyeva - Trend:
Turkmenistan takes substantial measures to plan and deploy assistance to migrants, International Organization for Migration (IOM) told Trend.
“countering risks of irregular migration and combatting trafficking in persons is the subject of the two NAPs on Countertrafficking. One of them was successfully implemented and the second one is in the progress. These plans focus on the creation of Turkmenistan the national referral and assistance mechanisms to support the victims of human trafficking. Importantly, under the NAPs the parties cooperated to provide direct material and reintegration assistance to victims of trafficking and ensure preventive measures conducting information campaigns on the risks of irregular migration around the country and supporting operation two counter-trafficking/migration hotlines,” said IOM.
Besides that, under these plans, the country implemented several legal steps to criminalize trafficking in persons, added IOM.
“Recently Turkmenistan adopted Socio-Economic Response Plan to the Acute Disease Pandemic that includes migrants as one of the vulnerable groups that are susceptible to the consequences of the pandemic and resulting economic downturn.”
Since the beginning of the pandemic and following the discontinuation of the commercial air flights, Turkmenistan organized a series of return flights to assist its stranded population to get back home. Special quarantine zones for the returnees were organized that aimed at the prevention of spreading the disease inside the country, said the organization.
IOM said that last year IOM and MFA cooperated to provide monetary assistance to a number of Turkmenistan’s students that could not return home as the result of COVID. This was one of the examples of successful cooperation that provided targeted assistance to the real migrants affected by the pandemic.
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