Mexico City, Mexico — Mexico held a regional conference with the European Union on the diversion and illicit trafficking of small arms and light weapons. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE), in coordination with the European Union (EU) through the French cooperation agencies Expertise France and the Federal Office of Economic Affairs and Export Control (BAFA), celebrate the third phase of the “Partner to Partner ATT” program.
This joint program of the European Union and the Government of Mexico began in 2020 and aims to promote international cooperation, legal assistance, and shared responsibility for the phenomenon that firearms violence represents in Mexico and the region.
Likewise, “the program highlights the importance of the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) to strengthen international and regional efforts to address the illicit manufacturing and trafficking of firearms, as well as the relevance of the management of the international transfer of arms and prevent their diversion in order to curb this serious threat to global peace and security,” the SRE reported.
The comprehensive implementation of the ATT in workshops held virtually in the early phases of the program, in 2021 and 2022, demonstrated that collaboration between experts and those responsible for arms diversion will strengthen the exchange of information, good practices, and the use of technology to meet this challenge.
“It is estimated that in Latin America about 75 percent of homicides are committed with a firearm, which adds to violence against women and other vulnerable sectors of the population,” they added.
For the EU and Mexico, international cooperation and the fight against transnational organized crime represent a fundamental part of their collaboration. More than 20 countries participated in the program.