DUSHANBE, February 6, 2015, Asia-Plus – The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) Coordinating Committee of Heads of Competent Bodies for Combating Illegal Migration held a meeting in the Armenian capital Yerevan on February 5, according to the CSTO Secretariat.
Presided over by the head of the Russian Federal Migration Service (FMS) Konstantin Romodanovsky, the meeting reportedly brought together the heads of competent bodies of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan, as well as by representatives of the Eurasian Economic Commission, the CIS Executive Committee and International Organization for Migration (IOM)’s Office in Moscow to discuss joint efforts to combat illegal migration.
The CSTO Secretary-General Nikolay Bordyuzha also attended the meeting.
Speaking at the meeting, he, in particular, noted that the meeting detailed the organization and conduct of preventive measures and special operations to combat illegal migration in 2015, dubbed “Illegal Immigrant – 2015.”
Bordyuzha said the goals and objectives of the operation remain unchanged – to take, along with the toughening of migration legislation, measures to cut off the known and reveal new channels of illegal migration and combat criminal activities of organized groups engaged in the organization of illegal migration.
The CSTO secretary general said that last year the CSTO competent bodies revealed 158,115 instances of violation of immigration law. He said more than $6 million worth fines had been imposed and to the tune of $3.8 million were already collected. Also 23,309 people who breached the migration law were reportedly deported from CSTO member nations last year.
He said 639 criminal proceedings were instituted in 2014 for organizing illegal migration; 19 of these cases involved trafficking in persons.
Bordyuzha said a characteristic feature of the operation last year was that it was carried out simultaneously with special operations by police and security forces to combat trafficking in human persons.
