"Destination countries" have already laid down a framework of bilateral agreements designed to address cross-border issues, including human trafficking through the Five Country Conference.
On a practical level, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States have agreed to share biometric information, such as fingerprints, with each other to lessen immigration fraud. Under the High Value Data Sharing Protocol, Canada would be able to compare fingerprint information of asylum seekers with those stored in a partner country's immigration databases. Bilateral agreements were brokered through an immigration and border security forum called the Five Country Conference."Source countries" are beginning to develop the institutional, political and technological resources necessary for effective cooperation with the Five Countries.
Rohan Gunaratna, head of the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, said the centre of gravity of human smuggling networks in the region has shifted to Malaysia and Indonesia—even as they maintain a significant presence in Thailand.
The Canadian government has established a presence in Malaysia and Indonesia, he said, including some officials working with the Bangkok-based task force. There are about another dozen people working in the region outside of Thailand, he said.
Much of the recent biometric ID management activity in Malaysia should be read with this in mind.
