NEWS RELEASES

February 3, 2003 (1:30 p.m. EST) No. 16

CANADA HELPS HONDURAN STREET CHILDREN RETURN HOME

Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham today announced $200,000 in funding over the next two years for a pilot project that will help repatriate and reintegrate Honduran street children, currently in Canada illegally, who wish to return home. The project will directly benefit these children, who may have been victims of people traffickers. It will also help prevent the further victimization of young Hondurans by people traffickers.

People trafficking is a growing trend in organized crime whereby criminal organizations move people to another country in order to exploit them through activities such as drug trafficking, prostitution and forced labour. Traffickers tend to prey most frequently on vulnerable women and children.

"The trafficking of children from Central America is a human tragedy and a growing regional problem that needs to be addressed by the international community," said Mr. Graham. "As a party to the smuggling and trafficking protocols of the UN Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime, Canada firmly believes in helping the victims of these crimes."

The Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade's Human Security Program will provide funding for this initiative to the International Organization for Migration--a leading international organization working with migrants and governments to provide humane responses to migration challenges--and Casa Alianza (Covenant House), a non-profit organization dedicated to the rehabilitation and defence of street children in Central America. The four main components of the project are: the voluntary repatriation of approximately 100 children to Honduras; family reintegration and social reinsertion; teaching prevention in communities and schools in Honduras; and conducting research on the issue.

Canada played a key role in drafting the UN Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime as well as its two migration-related protocols: the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children; and the Protocol Against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air. Canada signed the Convention and both protocols in December 2000. It ratified all three of these instruments in May 2002.

For more information about this project please visit the Department's Human Security Web site: http://www.humansecurity.gc.ca

Funding for this initiative was provided for in the December 2001 federal budget and is therefore built into the existing fiscal framework.

- 30 -

For further information, media representatives may contact:

Isabelle Savard

Director of Communications

Office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs

(613) 995-1851

Media Relations Office

Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade

(613) 995-1874

http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca