The 4th senior officials meeting of the Coordinated Mekong Ministerial Initiative against Trafficking (COMMIT) process opened in Phnom Penh on Wednesday, aimed at further strengthening the efforts to combat human trafficking in the region.

More than 300 senior officials and representatives from the six Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) governments of Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam are attending the three-day meeting. Also at presence were senior officials of the UN Resident Coordinator of Cambodia.

Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior Sar Kheng delivered a keynote address at the opening ceremony.

The meeting will focus on reviewing and updating the three-year plan of action of joint activities to realize their vision of a trafficking-free Mekong region.

The six COMMIT governments adopted a comprehensive and strategic Sub-regional Plan of Action for joint endeavors against human trafficking at the third Senior Officials Meetings in Hanoi,Vietnam in March 2005.

Zhang Liming, head of the Chinese delegation, said at the meeting that the Chinese government pays great attention to the human trafficking issue and does its best to carry out the principles of the third meeting of COMMIT process.

She said that the efforts made by the Chinese government since 2005 include holding high level meeting on discussion of framework and components for the national plan of action against human trafficking; strengthening communication, cooperation and information sharing; launching campaign of combating cross-border trafficking jointly with neighboring countries.

Moreover, transit centers for trafficked women and children were established in Guangxi province in order to pay more attention to victims.

The crime of human trafficking continues to prevail in the region, according to a statement of UNIAP (the United Nations Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking in the Greater Mekong

Sub-region), which was established in June 2000 to facilitate a stronger and more coordinated response to human trafficking in theGMS.

The COMMIT Sub-regional Plan of Action focuses on the areas of law enforcement and criminal justice, and prevention, protection, recovery and reintegration of victims and set the standard for anti-trafficking work in the Asian region.

Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Sar Kheng said that the six GSM countries "are fully committed to work together and give our best to bring a stop to the inhumane act of human trafficking."

He also urged the international community to join hands with them "to make this world a better future, void of exploitative practices and human rights abuses that we call human trafficking."

Source:Xinhua