Morocco has dismantled last year “more than one hundred human trafficking networks” to Europe, as part of the fight against illegal immigration, said on Monday a senior Moroccan official.
“As part of the fight against trafficking in human beings, we have dismantled more than a hundred networks” in 2014, told to the AFP the Minister Delegate to the Minister of the Interior, Charki Draiss.
“They involved Moroccans but also people from sub-Saharan Africa, which organized trafficking to Spain,” he added.
Mr. Draiss was speaking on the sidelines of a press conference detailing the results of the regularization campaign conducted last year by the kingdom.
According to quasi-final figures, this new campaign has legalized nearly 18,000 migrants from a total of 27,332 requests. The beneficiaries are mainly from sub-Saharan Africa, although 116 nationalities are represented.
From a simple transit country, Morocco is becoming increasingly a host country, in particular because of the economic slump in Europe.
Meanwhile, at the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, the only European land borders with Africa, the kingdom recorded “87 assaults” in the past year, during which “over a hundred” members of the security forces were injured, noted Charki Draiss.
To respond to this influx of migrants at the same time as NGO criticism of abuse, Morocco has announced in the end of 2013 a “new migration policy.” Beyond the single regularization program, “it will implement a national strategy for better integration” noted before the press the Minister for Migration, Anis Birou.
Adopted by the government in December, this strategy will be divided into “11 action programs” on education, health, housing and employment.
“On education, for example, we have a whole school support program because we want these children to be successful in 10 or 15 years, and become actors of society and the economy,” said Mr. Birou.
