Training Workshop on HBM

Dushanbe, Tajikistan, December 16, 2013 - IOM Tajikistan has successfully delivered a ten-day joint Humanitarian Border Management workshop for five Tajik and fifteen Afghan officers from the border management services of the two countries. This was the third training of this kind conducted within the framework of IOM Tajikistan’s Integrated Cooperation Programme on Tajik-Afghan Border Security and Community Stabilization programme with funding from the UK Conflict Pool.

The training course includes the implementation of eight modules: Introduction to the Concept of Humanitarian Border Management, Fundamental Rights of Migrants, the Legal Framework, Challenges of Protecting the Human Rights of Migration, Vulnerable Migrants in Mixed Migration Flows, Contingency Planning in Pre-Crisis Scenarios, Humanitarian Border Management in Crisis Situations and Migration Health.

The workshop participants focused on the main aspects of HBM, including use of human rights based approach in border management; crisis-prevention and pre-crisis programming and coordination; methods of passport verification, vehicle checking, and detection of contraband; search and rescue in crisis situations; protection and assistance to refugees, asylum seekers,  internally displaced persons, victims of trafficking and other vulnerable persons; and prevention of the spread of infectious diseases.

Following the training course, participants will be better prepared in responding to large-scale cross-border migration flows caused by a crisis. A group of 50 Tajik and Afghan border guards and officers were trained between August – December 2013. A minimum of nine rounds of similar trainings are projected for 2014 – 2015 that will reach at least 130 employees of the Border Forces Department of the Republic of Tajikistan and the Afghan Border Police of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.

Both Tajik and Afghan participants of the training course have highlighted the usefulness of such workshops in exchanging experiences and noticed a growing level of communication and partnership between the two neighbouring countries.