‘Next please.’

Check documents.

‘Take off your glasses and look straight into the camera.’

Stamp passport.

‘Welcome to South Sudan. Enjoy your stay.’

As a traveller looking from the outside, this may seem like a mundane routine that Immigration Officers at Points of Entry must do, as travellers enter and exit through border points. But there is more to the Officer’s work than meets the eye.

Immigration Officers in South Sudan, like in other parts of the world, are tasked with the important mandate of overseeing migration and border management, and, to contribute to the fight against Trafficking in Persons (TiP) and Smuggling of Migrants (SoM) affecting South Sudan.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) through the Better Migration Management (BMM) programme is supporting the Ministry of Interior’s Directorate of Civil Registry, Nationality, Passports and Immigration with capacity building and training to manage immigration in South Sudan in a humane, orderly and dignified manner in line with international standards and respecting human rights, as well as to combat transnational organize crimes of Human trafficking and Smuggling of Persons, as South Sudan is designated as origin, transit and destination country for irregular migrants. 

IOM recently organised a refresher workshop on migration issues for Immigration Officers stationed in Juba International Airport and in the Directorate’s Headquarters and Kololo sub-office. This contributed to a better understanding of the checks that they must conduct at points of entry and exit so as to help improve the human-rights based management of safe, orderly and regular migration and to support the authorities addressing the trafficking in human beings and the smuggling of migrants in and out of South Sudan.

“We are committed to continue to support authorities to improve migration management in the country, and in particular to curb the trafficking of human beings and the smuggling of migrants in South Sudan,” said IOM Migration Management Unit Programme Coordinator, Fitriana Nur during opening remarks at the workshop.

The workshop also included protection mainstreaming to raise awareness among front line officers on considerations directed to vulnerable groups, including persons with disabilities at crossing points.   

“Through this workshop, we were reminded on techniques that we should employ to help us identify migrants who may be victims of trafficking and in need of help, and identify traffickers and smugglers at the crossing points,” said Captain Yak Gai Khoe, a participant at the workshop from the Entry Permit Department.

Since the beginning of the year, IOM’s Migration Management Unit has conducted a total of three refresher workshops for frontline Immigration Officers in South Sudan.

Better Migration Management Programme is a regional, multi-year, multi-partner programme, funded by the EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa (EUTF) and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). It is implemented by British Council, Civipol, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes (UNODC) and IOM. BMM covers Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, and Uganda.

Written by Liatile Putsoa, IOM South Sudan Media and Communications Officer.