Identity Management Workshop - Immigration officials from Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia are meeting in Tanzania to work out ways for better identity management, under an EU-funded border management capacity building programme.
The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said, in a statement received by PANA here Tuesday, that its Tanzanian office is facilitating the workshop in partnership with the Dutch I.D. Management Academy and the Portuguese Border Agency (SEF.)
It said the 25-27 February workshop is being attended by Directors of the Immigration Departments of the listed countries.
It said the objective of the workshop was to increase government awareness of the importance of identity management and assist participating governments in assessing and improving the integrity of their identity documents and related issuance and management systems, with a focus on effective, robust and internationally compliant processes.
Tanzanian Deputy Minister for Home Affairs Pereira Silima, who opened the workshop, was quoted to have said that false identities were increasingly becoming key assets for criminal individuals and groups, who were using identity fraud to conduct human trafficking, money laundering, arms smuggling and drug trafficking across international borders.
“We cannot practically stop people from crossing borders, but we can put in place proper migration management systems to ensure smooth and orderly movements of persons,” he said.
Pana 26/02/2013