The International Organisation for Migration (IOM), through its Mission in Rome, is launching, in collaboration with the government of Malta, a project envisaging a comprehensive mechanism by which failed asylum seekers or other migrants, who are not eligible for residence and wish to return home, may do so in safety and dignity.

The project named “Pilot initiative to foster assisted voluntary return in Malta” will have a seven-month duration, until December 2006, and is funded by the European Refugee Fund – ERF, co-funded by the Maltese Ministry for Justice and Home Affairs and the International Organisation for Migration, IOM. The initiative is collaboration with the Ministry for the Family and Social Solidarity.

The project envisages a number of activities will be performed in Malta among which four training-information sessions involving government officials and social workers to promote the option of Assisted Voluntary Return, (AVR) among the migrant population residing in the island.

The IOM have concluded the first one and half day seminar on return policies and practices, involving as well intensive exchange and transfer of experiences and expertise among social workers, police officers, governmental officials dealing with migration-related issues. The seminar was facilitated by IOM experts and practitioners on head of the AVR Services in Geneva, AVR Nicoletta Giordano and head of Migration Management Unit in Rome, Giulia Falzoi, and focused on migration management and assisted voluntary return schemes.

AVR schemes – that have been actively implemented by IOM over the last decades in many countries – have proved to be a necessary component for any effective migration management policy.

This initiative demonstrates government’s commitment to a comprehensive approach, which should go beyond addressing the needs of the day, establishing measures and options with a long-term perspective. AVR services are indeed intended to the benefit both origin and destination countries – by releasing the in-flow pressure – as well as migrants.

This project will also fund the return assistance and reintegration a number of migrants at present hosted in Malta.

Counselling and information about return are being immediately available and in the next days IOM experts and Maltese social workers as well as reception centres managers will be working together to identify possible beneficiaries of AVR.

For more information, contact can be made directly with the IOM at: +3906-4418-6226 or email [email protected]; [email protected].