"Human trafficking needs global action": HK

Hong Kong's Security Secretary, Regina Ip, has called for increased international cooperation to tackle the problem of human trafficking.

She was speaking at the Asia-Pacific Intergovernmental meeting on refugees and migrants, which is taking place in Hong Kong.

Mrs Ip said that more publicity should be given to the dangers of human trafficking, and better mechanisms should be set up to repatriate illegal immigrants.

She said Hong Kong was not and would never be a migrant trafficking base.

Earlier this month, the Hong Kong authorities found twenty-six mainland Chinese hidden in a container bound for the United States, sparking fears that the island is becoming a transit point for human smugglers. The illegal immigrants had allegedly paid fifty thousand US dollars to smuggling gangs.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service