UN Launches New Regional Initiative Against Crimes

UN Launches New Regional Initiative Against Crimes

The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has launched a regional programme to curb drug trafficking and other forms of organised crimes in West Africa .

Speaking at the programme's launching in New York , Head of UNODC, Yuri Fedotov, said that West Africa was increasingly becoming a major transiting point for cocaine smuggling.

Fedotov said that the region, with some 16 countries, was vulnerable to organised crime because of porous borders, widespread poverty, weak governance and widespread corruption.

He also said that the region was also attractive to drug smugglers because of its strategic location on a long coastline.

Fedotov was quoted as saying: '' cocaine is however not the only problem of this region, West Africa is also a destination for counterfeit medicines, black market cigarettes, toxic waste, a source of stolen natural resources, especially oil, human trafficking, particularly exploitation of children for forced labour, begging and sexual exploitation .''

The agency will also address the trans-continental nature and trans-Atlantic routes of the crime.

The four-year programme will focus on peace-building, security sector reform, as well as national and regional institution and capacity-building.

In its 2009 report on transnational drug smuggling, UNODC estimated that up to 100 tonnes of cocaine might have transited through West Africa that year.

NAN/Qasim/Yinka