Astana, Kazakhstan, 17^th February, 2015. Today, in the IOM Coordination Office for Central Asia, in Astana, Coordinator for Central Asia and Chief of IOM Missions in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, Mr. Dejan Keserovic, and Deputy Coordinator for IOM in Central Asia, Mrs. Tatiana Hadjiemmanuel, met with 17 undergraduate and postgraduate students and faculty from the School of Humanities and Social Sciences of the Nazarbayev University (Dr. Caress Schenk, Assistant Professor, Political Science and International Relations; Dr. Chris Whitsel, Associate Professor, Sociology; and Dr. Sofiya An, Assistant Professor, Sociology). Students were invited to get acquainted with IOM’s work in Kazakhstan and Central Asia.

The meeting was opened by IOM representatives who provided a brief overview of IOM’s global structure and Central Asia operations in the areas of immigration and border management, combatting trafficking in persons, irregular migration, labour migration, migration and health as well as protection of human rights and dignity rights of migrants. Special emphasis was given to the good cooperation and strong relations IOM enjoys with all Governments in Central Asia providing support on migration governance and programmatic areas of mutual interest.

Students were actively engaged asking questions and were particularly interested in issues of the demographic situation of Kazakhstan and how it relates to immigration and emigration; integration and regularization of migrants into Kazak society and international good practices; trafficking in persons and  smuggling in Central Asia; cooperation between IOM , civil society and Government agencies.