Regional Event in New Delhi:

UN.GIFT Receives Strong Support in South Asia

29 October 2007 - Over a thousand representatives from governments, leading Indian private sector companies, non-governmental organisations, Bollywood, the media and UN agencies joined forces at UN.GIFT's regional event in South Asia, which ended with the adoption of the Delhi Declaration and an accompanying series of detailed recommendations on human trafficking.

"Our objective was to produce a turning point in the fight against human trafficking in South Asia. This event has been unique in size and scale. We've set down a number of milestones to measure progress. I'm hoping we will be able to show some quick wins and then lengthen our stride over the medium to long term," said Gary Lewis, Representative of Regional Office for South Asia, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

The two-day conference, organised by UNODC and co-sponsored by the Indian Government with support from UNDP, UNICEF, UNFPA, UNAIDS, UNIFEM, IOM and ILO, took place on 10 - 11 October 2007 at the Government Conference Centre at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi.

The Delhi Declaration and accompanying detailed recommendations launched UN.GIFT's work in South Asia.

"We are only at the end of the beginning. The product has been the process and we now have to take this process forward on a number of fronts - especially with the private sector, the Bollywood and arts community and the media," Lewis added.

Although the main focus of the conference was combating human trafficking in women and children for commercial sexual exploitation, it also addressed trafficking for forced labour and the importance of safe migration.

Present at the conference were the Indian Minister for Home Affairs, Mr. Shivraj Patil, Minister for Women and Child Development, Mrs. Renuka Chowdhury, and Minister for Labour and Employment, Mr. Oscar Fernandes. All supported UN.GIFT in their speeches and stressed the required political action to address the crime of human trafficking in India.

Senior representatives from the governments of Afghanistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives and Sri Lanka also made presentations at the meeting, while Pakistan was represented by civil society.

Several forums took place during the conference, working out a set of recommendations for their respective fields:

• Developing Business Responses to Human Trafficking
• Role of the Arts, Media and Popular Culture in Fighting Human Trafficking
• Law Enforcement Responses to Human Trafficking
• Community Participation for the Prevention of Human Trafficking
• Protecting the Victims of Human Trafficking
• Trafficking for Forced Labour
• Trans-national human trafficking: the importance of promoting safe migration
• Human Trafficking and HIV/AIDS

A key part here was a round-table discussion on how the private sector can participate actively and positively in fighting human trafficking, which saw a strong commitment to join the effort from the over 30 senior business leaders taking part in it.

"The private sector in India is keen to help, and is seeking ways to increase their Corporate Social Responsibility activities in this field," Mr Lewis noted.

"They want to develop business models to counter trafficking in source areas by building upon their core competencies and they are asking us how they can contribute to public awareness campaigns on anti-human-trafficking," he pointed out.

This would include a list of good practices in relation to human trafficking for the tourism sector, with several trade organizations working together with UNODC and other leading organizations to develop a code of conduct.

UN.GIFT also received strong support from Indian artists, with leading Bollywood luminaries like John Abraham, Amisha Patel, Preity Zinta, Mita Vashisht, and Sharmila Tagore, as well as singer Penaz Masani and musician Gautam Ghosh, signing up to join the fight. International Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan lent his voice to UN.GIFT with a powerful message of endorsement.

Launched in March 2007, the Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking (UN.GIFT) aims to combat human trafficking by raising awareness, strengthening prevention, reducing demand, supporting and protecting victims, and improving law enforcement.

In total eight regional UN.GIFT events are being held in the run-up to the global conference called The Vienna Forum which will take place in the Austrian capital in February 2008.