A/HRC/41/38/Add.1 19. Five years before the adoption of the Law on the Illicit Smuggling of Migrants, and after the ratification of the Trafficking in Persons Protocol in 2004, the Niger adopted Decree No. 2010-86 of 16 December 2010 to Combat Trafficking in Persons, the first major step adopted by the country to protect migrants from exploitation, ensuring the rights of victims to legal representation, an interpreter and the protection of their private life and identity (arts. 38, 40 and 43).13 20. As a follow-up to the Valletta Summit, the Niger has engaged in a process for the elaboration of a strategy to combat irregular migration, which has not yet been adopted. 14 The Economic and Social Development Plan for 2017–2020 addresses the issue of migration, focusing on its negative consequences, thence the need to address it from a security perspective. At the Marrakech conference on the Global Compact for Migration, the Minister of the Interior stated that the Niger was in the process of elaborating a national policy on migration, which would incorporate the objectives of the Global Compact for Migration and the Sustainable Development Goals. 2. National institutions 21. The Cabinet of the Prime Minister is in charge of the political direction on migration, in close collaboration with the Ministry of the Interior. Within the latter, the national surveillance directorate – which reports to the general directorate of the National Police – and the directorate of border coordination are responsible for migration issues, including border management and migration regulations. In 2007, the Government set up an interministerial committee, chaired by the Ministry of the Interior, to develop a national policy on migration. On 16 June 2016, this interministerial committee initiated discussions for the design of the national strategy to combat irregular migration. Additionally, the national consultation framework for migration, which brings together relevant actors working on migration-related issues (e.g., the Ministry of the Interior and development partners), is tasked with assisting the Government in identifying challenges and responses to migration management, and in particular irregular migration. 22. Within the Ministry of the Interior, a national commission is in charge of determining applicants’ eligibility for refugee status in the Niger. The general directorate for civil status, refugees and migrants provides secretariat support to this commission, ensuring the legal and administrative protection of refugees and asylum seekers. UNHCR participates as an observer in the deliberations of the commission, and the decisions of the latter can be appealed before the Ministry of the Interior and other competent jurisdictions. 23. The Ministry of Justice is another key actor in migration-related issues. In accordance with the decree against trafficking in persons of 2010, the national commission and the national agency to combat trafficking in persons, tasked with adopting and ensuring implementation of policies and programmes for the prevention of trafficking in persons, were created within the Ministry. Pursuant to the Law on the Illicit Smuggling of Migrants, both bodies are also in charge of coordinating the fight against the illicit smuggling of migrants. The national agency to combat trafficking in persons manages a special fund for the compensation of victims. In March 2018, the Niger organized a meeting to coordinate the fight against illicit smuggling of migrants and trafficking in persons, in which 13 13 14 6 illegal entry of a person into a State Party of which the person is not a national or a permanent resident” (art. 3 (a)). The Trafficking in Persons Protocol defines trafficking in persons as “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation” (art. 3). Consent, exploitation and transnationality are the elements that distinguish the crimes of smuggling and trafficking: the smuggling of migrants involves migrants who have consented to the smuggling; trafficking involves the exploitation of the victim; and smuggling is always transnational while trafficking can also be internal. See www.unodc.org/lpo-brazil/en/trafico-de-pessoas/index.html. National strategy to combat irregular migration, draft of December 2016.