Open Lecture on the Smuggling of Migrants at the Faculty of Law and Political Science in Vientiane

Many people who do not have access to legal channels of migration are prepared to take risks to improve their lives, making them easy prey for criminals who seek to enrich themselves by smuggling migrants from one country to another.
Migrant smuggling occurs in South-East Asia. People who don’t have travel documents or are not well informed about travel conditions use the services of smugglers to enter another country that appears to offer better prospects, and are often abused en route or at their destination. The migrants are often women or young girls.
Ms Neïla Mebtoul, Programme Officer at ILSTA, held an open lecture on smuggling of migrants at the Faculty of Law and Political Science in Vientiane.
Smuggling of migrants generally refers to the procurement of the illegal entry of another person in order to obtain a financial or material benefit. This criminal offence is defined in the Protocol on Smuggling of migrants by Land, Sea and Air supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC).
Under this protocol, migrants cannot be prosecuted for the offence of smuggling of migrants and should be protected because of their vulnerability.
In order to stress the means of combatting this phenomenon, the presenter exposed the international legal framework of smuggling of migrants and the related offences in the Lao Penal Code. She also stressed the rights of migrants and the abuses they may be subject to during their journey.