Australian delegation head to Bali to discuss people smuggling

The Immigration Minister, Chris Evans, will lead a delegation to Bali today to discuss people smuggling and human trafficking in the region.

The Bali Process Ministerial meeting will be co-chaired by Australia and Indonesia and was established in 2002.

The Foreign Minister, Stephen Smith, and the Home Affairs Minister, Bob Debus will also attend the forum.

Senator Evans says he called the meeting to try to bolster efforts to combat human trafficking and trans-national crime.

"We've seen an increase in numbers of people moving irregularly through the region," he said.

"We've seen the push factors out of Afghanistan, Iraq, Sri Lanka and other nations, Bangladesh, where we've seen our neighbours dealing with these problems.

"The severe downturn in the world economy will push more migrants into the hands of people traffickers as they seek better lives abroad," Smith said.

The minister said conflicts in Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and at the Afghan-Pakistan border had also significantly fed people smuggling.

The issue of people smuggling and how to combat it as it becomes more and more a part of organised crime is the subject of a gathering of representatives from around 40 countries in Indonesia's Bali over the next couple of days.