Mini-conference immigration chain to strengthen cooperation

To further strengthen cooperation within the immigration chain and make agreements on joint priorities in the Caribbean Netherlands, the annual mini-conference took place on Thursday the 29th of September. The theme this year was 'Immigration Chain 2.0 and human trafficking'. Island Governor of Bonaire, Edison Rijna, opened the conference.

Miniconferentie Vreemdelingenketen

After a brief review of last year's conference, the morning programme focused on exploring the possibilities for digitalisation and the joint design of a foreigner's 'customer journey', led by Ron van Beusekom, head of ICT at the Shared Service Organisation of Rijksdienst Caribisch Nederland. The ideal picture is to offer citizens one point of contact for services from a single portal. Collaboration is of great importance here, because in the Caribbean Netherlands most organisations are relatively small with limited resources and 'know how' in the field of ICT.

In the afternoon, participants continued the interactive programme discussing developments in human trafficking and human smuggling in the Caribbean. Led by criminologist Simone van der Zee and police liaison for the Kingdom and Venezuela Henk Werson, the participants discussed, among other things, how signals of human trafficking could be better recognised through cooperation. For example, when it comes to people working in the Caribbean Netherlands illegally and being exploited under force.

Organisations represented at the mini-conference included: Dutch Caribbean Police Force (KPCN), Customs, Royal Netherlands Marechaussee (KMar), Public Prosecutions Office (OM), Coast Guard, Judicial Institution Caribbean Netherlands (JICN), Guardianship Council, Regional Information and Expertise Center (RIEC), the Public Entity of Bonaire (including Supervision and Enforcement and Civil Affairs), Plenchi di Trabou and the Ministry of Justice and Security. The Immigration- and Naturalization Service CN (IND) and the Social Affairs and Employment unit (SZW) organised the mini-conference and were, of course, also represented.