The Committee to Combat Trafficking in Persons at the Saudi Human Rights Commission briefed foreign diplomats and labor attaches on the mechanisms used to identify cases of trafficking in persons, in cooperation with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
As part of a remote training course organized by the Commission, the diplomats working in embassies in the Kingdom were briefed on the elements of the crime of trafficking in persons according to the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, and the legal status of victims under national law.
The training course also addressed the role of the diplomatic corps in identifying cases of trafficking in persons, in addition to the national referral mechanism launched by the Kingdom, and coordination procedures with the relevant authorities.
Established in 2009 pursuant to Council of Ministers Decision No. 244, the Committee to Combat Trafficking in Persons is part of the Human Rights Commission and comprises representatives from the Ministries of the Interior, Foreign Affairs, Justice, Social Affairs, Labor, and Culture and Information, as well as officials from the Bureau of Investigation and Public Prosecution.
The Committee’s functions include, according to its website, following up on victims of trafficking to ensure that they are not exploited in such a way again, formulating policies to encourage a proactive approach to seeking out victims, and providing training in victim identification to relevant personnel, coordinating with the authorities to repatriate victims to their homeland or to their place of residence in any other country, and making recommendations on victims who should remain in Saudi Arabia, where necessary, and regularizing their status to enable them to work in the Kingdom.
