On the 7th of July, Ambassador Michel Veuthey was invited to participate in a meeting organized by the UNHCR in preparation for the Global Refugee Forum High Officials level meeting to be held from the 15th to the 17th December 2025. The event was entitled: “From Pledges to Practice: Scaling Up Responses on Alternatives to Detention, Protection at Sea and Trafficking”.
The meeting brought together the Assistant High Commissioner for Protection, Members of Permanent Missions, and representatives of international organizations and civil society. It provided a space for insightful discussions.
During the meeting, participants discussed the close ties between refugees, human trafficking, and protection at sea and the pledges made by IOs and civil society organizations as part of the Global Refugee Forum. In cases of forced displacement, the root causes that make people vulnerable are exacerbated. Furthermore, certain national or regional legal frameworks do not align with international law, resulting in tragic situations. Many countries have punitive measures against trafficked individuals or irregular asylum seekers. For instance, they practice detention and do not respect the principle of non-refoulement. Participants therefore emphasized the need to implement various recommendations, such as ensuring safe migration opportunities and pathways (e.g., resettlement and family reunification); adopting a route-based approach to migration (i.e., an approach that addresses migration alongside the roads and not only within a country’s borders); respecting the rights of asylum seekers; including refugees and IDPs in national plans against trafficking; respecting the ECOSOC rights of refugees; improving the effectiveness of screening procedures at borders; and implementing alternatives to detention.
In his intervention, Ambassador Michel Veuthey presented the future events his office will organize: a side event for the World Fisheries Day (21 November), the Rome Conference on Human Trafficking (10 December) and an online course on refugees and human trafficking organized in collaboration with UNITAR from 20 January to 12 February, 2026.
You can find the intervention HERE.
