HE the Minister of Administrative Development, Labour and Social Affairs Dr Issa Saad al-Jafali al-Nuaimi, who is also chairman of the National Committee for Combatting Human Trafficking, said that Qatar is playing a major role in combating human trafficking out of its belief in the importance of preserving human dignity and fulfilling its ethical and legal obligations as it is an active member in the Group of Friends United against Human Trafficking and the Group of Friends concerned on Modern Day Slavery.
He stressed that Qatar has spared no effort to support the efforts of the international community to combat the phenomenon of human trafficking and related phenomena such as forced labour, modern slavery and child labour.
The minister was speaking at a high-level meeting of the UN General Assembly on “Global Plan of Action to Combat Trafficking in Persons” held at the UN headquarters in New York recently.
The meeting began with the official adoption of the political declaration on the implementation of the UN Global Plan of Action to Combat Trafficking in Persons, which Qatar, in partnership with Belgium, facilitated the negotiations about.
The minister expressed his satisfaction at the formal adoption of the Political Declaration on the implementation of the UN Global Plan of Action to Combat Trafficking in Persons, which had been agreed upon thanks to the political will of member states to take concerted and decisive action to implement the plan of action.
He reviewed the measures and actions taken by Qatar to combat trafficking in persons, including the issuing of Law No15 of 2011 on combating trafficking in human beings which criminalises trafficking in all its forms and patterns, Law No 21 of 2015 that abolishes the sponsorship system and Law No 15 of 2017 on domestic workers.
At the institutional level, Qatar has established the National Committee for Combatting Human Trafficking to unify the efforts of the state’s institutions and civil society in dealing with the phenomenon of human trafficking, as the committee aims to develop a national plan to combat human trafficking and follow up its implementation, in addition to help the victims of human trafficking to integrate quickly into the society through care and rehabilitation programmes, the Minister said, pointing out that there is a co-ordination between the committee with the International Criminal Police (Interpol) to organise the annual conference on combating human trafficking and smuggling of persons scheduled to be held in December in Doha.
Furthermore, the minister said that Qatar has sponsored at the regional level the Arab Initiative for building national capacities in combating human trafficking in Arab countries, in co-operation with the UN Office on Drugs and Crime and the Arab League to build and rehabilitate the national capacities working in various areas of combating human trafficking in the Arab region on scientific and professional bases, stressing that Qatar is one of the largest donor countries to the UN Voluntary Trust Fund for Victims of Trafficking in Persons since its establish.
In 2015, he said Qatar hosted the 13th United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice which adopted a comprehensive approach to address the crime of human trafficking as stated in the Doha Declaration.
Combating human trafficking requires addressing the real causes of this phenomenon, whether social, economic, cultural, political or ideological, and the absence of the rule of law and others, he said, adding that the inability of the international community to find just and decisive solutions to disputes and the resulting terrorism and armed organizations outside the framework of the international law contributed to the growing of the human trafficking’s phenomenon.
Qatar’s Permanent Representative to the UN Sheikha Alya Ahmed bin Saif al-Thani has chaired the second session of the high-level meeting to discuss and evaluate the Global Plan of Action and effective partnerships for the protection and
assistance to victims.
