19 November 2014

IOM and the Embassy of the Netherlands organized a four-day training on document security for practitioners from the regional departments of the State Migration Service and the Consular Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine. Etched out letters, stamps showing signs of tampering and even modified perforated passport numbers – this is what one of the participants in the training recalled from her experience in detecting fake and forged documents. At the same time, as stressed by EU Delegation Sector Manager Stephan Dahlgren, fostering document security is an important part of the EU – Ukraine visa free dialogue. In order to support Ukrainian state actors working in this field, IOM already organized a study visit to the Netherlands for the specialists from the State Migration Service of Ukraine in July. And now two Dutch experts, Eric Geestman and Ronald Gerardus van Ham, from the Immigration and Naturalization Service of the Ministry of Justice and Security of the Netherlands, came to Kyiv upon the request of the Ukrainian partners.

The comprehensive training they conducted covered many issues, starting from important basics, such as paper making and printing techniques, progressing all the way to modern types of document fraud. The training participants were enthused by the materials the trainers brought with them, such as specimens of identity documents and confiscated forged documents. It is also envisaged that after the training Ukrainian specialists would be able to share their knowledge and newly-gained expertize with their colleagues, so some sessions were dedicated to sharpening their presentation skills.

The training was conducted in the framework of the EU-funded MIGRECO project (Strengthening Migration Management and Cooperation on Readmission in Eastern Europe). MIGRECO assists Ukraine to develop a comprehensive migration management system in line with EU best practices, which will support Ukraine’s efforts in progressing in the visa-free dialogue with the EU.