The National Ministry of Transportation, headed by Diego Giuliano, and the Executive Committee for the Fight against Trafficking and Exploitation of Persons and for the Protection and Assistance of Victims, under the operational direction of Gustavo Vera, signed a framework agreement cooperation to promote, develop and implement policies, programs, plans and tools, in order to early detect the crime of trafficking in persons in all its forms and combat it in the context of the different modes of transport.
At the meeting, Vera expressed that with this agreement “it seeks to deepen what was started with the National Transport Regulation Commission (CNRT) in 2021.” The current agreement, however, “is more comprehensive: it seeks to spread line 145, train the members of the Ministry of Transportation and the different agencies that work under its orbit,” Vera said. “We will work on the prevention, detection, and prosecution of trafficking and exploitation in the different modes of transportation: air, rail, fluvial , maritime and terrestrial”, he expressed, while stating that work will be carried out “in an articulated manner on the smuggling of migrants and trafficking in persons, which, as expressed by different international treaties, are crimes that are closely linked to each other.” , maintained that through joint work, “it will seek to cover the different companies that are under the supervision of the Ministry of Transportation”.
For his part, Minister Diego Giuliano assured: “It is important that concrete actions are generated with this agreement. Today we are advancing with this signature because the idea is to work in coordination not only with CNRT but also with other modes of transport such as ports, trains and airports. The Committee has been institutionally strengthened with the signing of previous agreements and that is a positive experience, because it means that what has been said becomes facts and has continuity.”
Through this agreement, the parties undertake to “arbitrate the necessary actions to promote the prevention and/or eradication” of the crime of trafficking and exploitation, “through an intense informative and educational dissemination of all those practices or uses likely to be framed in the figures typified in Law No. 26,364 and / or in the international treaties and conventions on human rights consigned in paragraph 22 of article 75 of the National Constitution, in order to encourage or encourage the denunciation of any person who becomes aware of this type of facts”. With this objective, it is “of vital importance the collaboration of the Ministry of Transport in order to disseminate in the stations, terminals, delegations and among the users of passenger transport, under any of its modalities, the need and importance of reporting any fact related to with the crime of human trafficking”.
In this sense, the Committee undertakes to carry out training for the personnel of the Ministry of Transportation and will provide advice and collaboration in the eventual formulation of complaints. In addition, actions will be carried out in order to develop a joint protocol for the search for people, implementing signage with information in transport services of all authorized modalities, in terminals, airports and stations, and in the different headquarters and regional delegations.
Present at the meeting were: the Minister of Transportation of the Nation, Diego Giuliano, the Secretary of Transportation Management, Jimena López; the head of the Advisory Cabinet Unit, Facundo Benegas; the Director of Supervision and Financial Control of Motor Transport, Nelson O’Brien; the director of Gender and Diversity Policies, Jimena Bondaruk; the operational director of the Executive Committee to Combat Human Trafficking and Exploitation, Gustavo Vera; the coordinator of the technical teams of said body, Facundo Lugo, and the delegate Nicolás Del Mastro.
