Nov 20, 2017 | Uncategorized
The United Nations Regional Centre for Peace, Disarmament and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean (UNLIREC) continues its commitment to support States from the region in their efforts to effectively implement the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). In this regard, from 20-21 November, UNLIREC and the Ministry of Defense, along with the Salvadorian Chancellery, organized a workshop entitled “Towards internal regulation for ATT implementation”.
This activity represents the first of three workshops that form part of the assistance package sponsored by the ATT Voluntary Trust Fund through which El Salvador requested support to implement a project to provide continuity to its efforts to effectively execute the Treaty.
The activity – targeting 25 national authorities responsible for conventional arms transfers – provided a platform to present and discuss both the normative requirements that derive from the ATT, as well as the relevant national regulations. The aim was to identify the needs and determine the necessary steps for the preparation of the internal legislation that effectively enforces the ATT, as well as to present the draft decree to create the national authority to implement the aforementioned Treaty.
Nov 13, 2017 | Uncategorized
From 13-16 November, the United Nations Regional Centre for Peace, Disarmament and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean (UNLIREC), together with the government of Belize, delivered its first inter-institutional Firearms and Ammunition Evidence Management Course (EMC).
Harmonized efforts are fundamental in developing a sound national strategy to investigate and prosecute firearms-related cases and illicit trafficking in firearms and ammunition. Consequently, UNLIREC convened this initiative to strengthen coordination among security sector officials, share knowledge on key aspects of the chain of custody process, provide practical training on best practices to manage a scene under investigation, and increase the knowledge base of the relevant legal framework.
The EMC was led by international subject matter experts and contained training modules on ‘Firearms and Ammunition Identification’, ‘Legal Considerations in Criminal Investigations’, ‘Evidence Management at the Crime Scene’, ‘Evidence Examination and Analysis in the Laboratory’, ‘Intelligence and Investigation Tools’, as well as practical exercises. Participants also benefitted from presentations by INTERPOL on addressing firearms trafficking, firearms tracing and investigative tools as well as Belize´s Director of Public Prosecutions on the national legislative context.
20 national justice and law enforcement participants, including firearms examiners, forensic laboratory personnel, scenes of crimes and intelligence police officers, and public prosecutors, were trained during this course. Training on best practices for collecting, packaging, and transferring firearms and ammunition found at a scene under investigation increases the capacity of security sector officials to manage potential evidence in a way that is deemed admissible in a court of law, and ultimately allows for a reduction in impunity in firearms-related cases.
The EMC is part of UNLIREC’s Caribbean Operational Forensic Ballistics Assistance Package, which is made possible thanks to the support of the governments of Canada, Germany, and the United States of America.
UNLIREC, as the regional organ of the UN Office for Disarmament, seeks to advance the cause of practical disarmament in Latin America and the Caribbean as part of its commitment to support Member States in their implementation of international disarmament and non-proliferation instruments, in particular, the 2001 UN Programme of Action on Small Arms.
Nov 13, 2017 | Uncategorized
Aware of the problem of illicit trafficking in arms, ammunition and their parts and components by means of postal shipments, the United Nations Regional Centre for Peace, Disarmament and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean (UNLIREC), developed in 2016 a practical tool to improve the capacity of practitioners in relation to their interpretation of x-ray images and identification of possible concealment methods. The Course for Interdicting Small Arms in Postal Shipments (ISAPS) was born as a result of these efforts, whose second edition was held in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, from 13 to 17 November with the invaluable collaboration of the Dominican Postal Institute (INPOSDOM) and the Ministry of Defense.
Thanks to the support of the Center for Adaptive Security Research and Applications (CASRA), UNLIREC designed a methodology that included training based on an electronic platform, theoretical presentations and a session on identifying concealment methods by means of an x-ray scanner. The ISAPS counted with the participation of officials responsible for the control of packages and luggage at entry and exit points from the INPOSDOM, the General Directorate of Customs, the Ministry of Defense, the Specialized Body for Port Security (CESEP), the Specialized Body in Airport Security and Civil Aviation (CESAC), the National Department of Investigations (DNI) and the National Directorate for the Control of Drugs (DNCD).
To measure the impact of this course, all 40 participants were divided into two groups that received this training in an independent and differentiated manner. The first group, called on line group, only had access to the online training platform during three days of the course. The second group, called joint group?in addition to online training?attended on-site training, received teaching materials and participated in practical exercises with techniques of identification of methods of concealment using the scanner, for another two additional days. Also, all participants performed initial and final tests, and pledged to train 12 additional hours on the online platform for the next month. When this training is finished, participants will proceed to take a final exam.
A preliminary comparative analysis of the performance of both groups in the initial and final tests?performed at the beginning and at the end of the course?shows that those participants who attended the on-site training and had access to the practical exercise were able to improve their ability to detect prohibited objects by 11% and their ability to discern a false threat by 17%. Once all the participants complete their final exam, a subsequent analysis will be carried out in order to measure the impact of the additional training through the virtual platform.
Among the reference material provided to participants, it must be highlighted as a fundamental pedagogical tool, the Arms, Ammunition, Parts and Components Identification Guide in which the operation and interpretation of images obtained by means of x-ray technology is addressed, and the main physical and material characteristics of arms, their parts and ammunition is collected in fact sheets, as well as their visualization through x-rays. The logical structure of the guide allows the user to become familiar with the physical appearance of arms, ammunition, parts and components and the equivalence with the images generated by the scanner.
UNLIREC welcomes the contribution of the Federal Republic of Germany, which made possible the development of the Arms, Ammunition, Parts and Components Identification Guide and the organization of the ISAPS.
Oct 29, 2017 | Uncategorized
From the 29th September to the 1st October, the United Nations Regional Centre for Peace, Disarmament a and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean (UNLIREC), together with the Office of the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) Programme in Honduras, facilitated three workshops centred on the development of indicators that measure illegal trafficking and disarmament. These activities were undertaken in the framework of the joint programme entitled “Youth Volunteerism for Peacebuilding and Disarmament: Young People Measuring Community Security Through Participatory Indicators,” which has been taking place in Colombia, Honduras, Peru and Trinidad and Tobago since June 2017. The main objective of this initiative is to educate young volunteers on the 2030 Agenda and, specifically, on the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16, security and illegal trafficking, so that they can develop indicators to measure the impact of these phenomena at the community level.
About 80 young volunteers from Tegucigalpa, San Pedro Sula and La Ceiba, leaders of youth organizations engaged in violence prevention and peacebuilding, participated in the three workshops for the development of indicators.
The workshops followed a participatory methodology to ensure that young people’s perspectives guided the debate and the definition of indicators. In this regard, the session began with a presentation of key concepts and definitions through local and national case studies that have been reported by the media in recent years. Among the salient issues for young people were stockpile management, the impact of stray bullets and the need to provide training for and to increase awareness among law enforcement officials, the media and civil society organizations.
The young volunteers developed indicators that concentrated on the information they wanted to measure from a local perspective, incorporating advice given on this process to ensure its validity, as well as a focus on gender and youth. The workshops were a space for creativity and exchange where indicators were proposed. The project’s volunteers would then validate these indicators in the upcoming work sessions.
These young Hondurans not only led these workshops, applying technical information and their previous training geared towards the development of indicators, but also provided a critical analysis of human security, armed violence and the illicit trafficking of firearms, phenomena that affect their age group and community. This is a direct contribution to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), specifically SDG 16 Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions.
Oct 29, 2017 | Uncategorized
On 29 October, UNLIREC and the Government of Colombia held a working meeting on the modernization of Colombia´s legal framework on Less Lethal Weapons (LLW), an issue considered a priority by the current government. This activity brought together 20 representatives from nine state entities, including Ministries and other institutions, such as the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Defense, Commerce and Industry, Interior and Police, as well as the Colombian Military Industry, the Private Security Oversight Agency and Customs. These institutions form part of the Colombian LLW Working Group, responsible for the preliminary drafting of new legislation on LLWs.
Following UNLIREC´s previous LLW Workshop held in Bogota in April, national authorities requested legal and technical drafting assistance. Consequently, the objective of this additional session was to present to the working group the main comments from UNLIREC’s legal team on the Less Lethal Weapons Bill, which is currently under development. This activity is part of UNLIREC’s project entitled “Combat of Illicit Small Arms and Light Weapons and Ammunition in Central and South America” currently in execution thanks to financial support from Germany.
As a result, the representatives from the different sectors engaged in a debate on basic issues to be considered in the preliminary analysis of the bill, specifically those aspects regarding definitions, classification and possible control measures for LLW.
Oct 25, 2017 | Uncategorized
On the 25th and the 26th October, 20 young people participating in the Youth Volunteerism for Peacebuilding and Disarmament: Youth Measuring Community Security Through Participatory Indicators project conducted 1146 surveys to learn about the Trujillo citizens’ perception of insecurity. They, therefore, sought information on the topics proposed in the indicators under the main concepts of human security and armed violence.
The purpose of this exercise was to collect information from primary sources and to train young volunteers to use research tools, such as multiple-choice surveys. In addition, they learnt about the experiences and testimonies of the local population. For these surveys, four locations were chosen. On the first day, the Universidad Nacional de Trujillo (UNT) and the Universidad Privada Antenor Orrego (UPAO) were selected. Both schools have a significant representative young population originating from the targeted communes of the Joint United Nations Human Security Programme where the project has been implemented in Peru. These districts are La Esperanza, Florencia de Mora and El Porvenir. On the second day, the volunteers went to the Mercado Modelo in La Esperanza and the historic centre of Trujillo. There, the volunteers got a clearer picture of the perspectives in the population in relation to the indicators they had developed over the course of the project.
The most common profiles of the respondents, were young people between the ages of 18 and 29, out of which a 53% were students and women. The main findings of the surveys revealed that at least 491 persons felt fairly unsafe while 331 felt very unsafe in their community. In addition, a third of the respondents had been victims of crime in the last 12 months, while the majority believed that a high probability existed of their becoming victims of extortion in the coming months. Another interesting revelation was that 218 people had been victims, or knew someone close to them who had been a victim, of stray bullets. According to 60% of people, a person who is engaged in economic activity in Trujillo is highly likely to become a victim of extortion.
In terms of gender-based violence, 94% of respondents said that it was very likely (587) or likely (491) that a woman would be sexually assaulted, citing the high rates of cases in public, at work and home. This was consistent with the creation of indicators related to this phenomenon, such as cyber-sexual harassment. On the other hand, when asked whether they knew the points of sale for illegal weapons, 236 respondents mentioned knowing about the existence of a point of sale in their area. The results were categorized according to age group, sex, district and occupation and were compared with the indicators proposed by the young volunteers.
The United Nations Regional Center for Peace, Disarmament and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean (UNLIREC) and the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) Programme have been hosting the regional project and this is one of the last activities of the project in Peru.
