UNHCR shares expertise with Frontex

The UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, has been working on training curricula and other material for border guards for some years and are now sharing this expertise also with Frontex officers in Slovakia and other locations, a statement on Frontex’s website has said.

Luca Curci is the head of the UNHCR Liaison Office to Frontex, the post that he took after working with refugees in various countries including in West Africa. He speaks firmly about what is needed to create a “protection-sensitive border management” system:

“We have learnt from our experience across the world that the response to human trafficking cannot be exclusively one of a security/police operation. In the border context in particular, it requires additional skills and knowledge that build upon the guards’ standard training.”

According to Luca, an effective way to combat human trafficking would involve a combination of several elements, such as the law enforcement tactics, community strength, intelligence, the contribution of human rights organisations that can introduce a protection angle, meaning the ability to identify categories of people at risk or people with specific vulnerabilities and protection needs to be referred to appropriate services, in line with applicable human rights standards and legislation. Both Ionut and Igors confirm that where the regular migratory flow through the border changes into a massive influx of asylum seekers, this extra UNHCR assistance and advice on how to act, how to apply correctly the co-existing rules for border management and refugees’ rights, such as the principle of non-refoulement, are highly appreciated. In fact, where there is a risk of human trafficking, everyone’s input is welcome – the border guards, the police, the human right monitors, the cultural mediators, and the NGOs.

Luca from UNHCR sums it all up: “There are so many reasons why people are forced to move across international borders. This makes every story of human trafficking completely different, and each requires a different, individual response and help. We must think about those who are afraid or traumatised, those who are too young to speak, those who cannot read or speak any foreign language. It is essential that once they find themselves at the border, there is a guard ready to listen and hear their individual story and that there are referral pathways to assist those in need of protection.”