Tackling people trafficking, he continued, depends largely on addressing poverty and weakness that lead victims to become prey, as well as building national capacities to tackle such a crime.
 
He noted that the responsibility of combating trafficking in persons is not a sole responsibility of the countries where the crimes take place, but is a shared responsibility with the source countries, where the victims come from. Al Awadi reiterated that home countries of victims should prevent factors that lead to the exploitation of victims, and ensure that women are not exploited under the pretext of labour recruitment and exportation.
 
The UAE official said there should be coordination between labour exporting countries and labour importing countries.
 
Al Awadi cited the UAE?s achievements in dealing with human trafficking crimes since the launch of the Comprehensive National Campaign for Anti-Human Trafficking in 2006 in accordance with international measures, such as trial of those accused, protection of victims and strengthening global partnerships in this respect.
 
He said that the UAE enacted the Federal Anti-Trafficking law in 2006, whose provisions cover all forms of human trafficking, noting that the law was the first of its kind in the Middle East. He added that the state has implemented a number of awareness procedures through the media and at the entry ports nationwide.
 
He referred to the recent report released by the National Committee for Anti-Human Trafficking for 2012 – 2013 on a number of cases, and the effectiveness of the law enforcement agencies.
 
Al Awadi said the UAE joined the United Nations Convention against Trans-national Organised Crime (Organised Crime Convention) and its special protocol to prevent and punish the crime of people trafficking, especially women and children. He added that when the UN initiative on trafficking in persons was launched in 2008, General Shaikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, donated US$15 million in support of the initiative.
 
He underlined that the UAE government was aware of the multiple challenges associated with human trafficking crimes, a situation he said, ?that requires concerted international action to tackle?.