City Desk :
State Minister for Information and Broadcasting Mohammad Ali Arafat has joined the First Ministerial Conference on Drug Trafficking and Substance Abuse in the Western Indian Ocean in Mauritius.
The conference was held at Intercontinental Resort in Balaclava, Mauritius on Thursday, according to a press release received here on Friday.
Ministers and delegation chiefs of different countries including Bangladesh State Minister discussed strategies to deal with drug trafficking and abuse of drugs.
The conference emphasized the establishment of a network of leading national organizations to coordinate the drug response through the establishment of regional cooperation structures and a regional drug observatory.
The challenges highlighted by the participants in the conference are additional risk of drug use by youths, risk of destabilizing enforcement of law and cross-border security, illegal financial flows, transnational crime, destroying family and social peace, threats to maritime security, the growing threat of synthetic drugs, flaws in the legal framework and increasing volume of drug production and drug markets.
To address the aforementioned challenges, the participants of the conference proposed increasing maritime surveillance and developing cross-border cooperation, partnership of all concerned stakeholders to disrupt and destroy drug trafficking networks, taking separate regional responsibilities, bringing partners together on regional maritime security established by the Indian Ocean Commission (IOC), training across the world and enhancing bilateral cooperation including police and customs cooperation between Indian Ocean countries.
