EDITORIAL: What is human trafficking?
Human trafficking is defined by the UN office on Drugs and Crime as the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of people through force, fraud or deception with the aim of exploiting them for profit. This definition suggests that Human Trafficking is a modernization of slavery. Although it is usually prevalent in certain regions of the world everyone should be educated about the crime of Human Trafficking so that they can be vigilant in order to protect victims or even to prevent themselves from becoming victims. It is often not a case where the victim was callous in their behaviour, sometimes they are recruited when seeking legitimate employment or educational opportunities and deceived by criminals.
It is also a form of organized crime as sophisticated groups set up operations to attract vulnerable persons. Usually Human Trafficking is only something that we see on TV or read about in the international news. We recall the container truck found in the UK containing the bodies of several persons with no legal origin in the UK. It was later found that the victims were Vietnamese migrants who had suffocated in the sealed truck.
Trafficking is used to supply the sex and entertainment industries as well as the hospitality industry where cheap or free labour is required. Captives are treated so badly that their organs are sometimes harvested to be sold with little care for their life afterward. Travel documents and identification are confiscated and withheld from the victims as a means of controlling them. The UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime sought to define the crime and allow for identification of its victims. Barbados has been a party to the protocol to prevent, suppress and punish trafficking in persons since 2001. There is also the Trafficking in Persons Prevention Act as part of our laws since 2016 which enacted fines of up to one million dollars for human trafficking.
Last year Attorney General, Dale Marshall had cause to deny that Barbados had any major human trafficking problems after it was claimed that there were non-nationals on the island in need of assistance who might have been lured here through Human Trafficking. At that time he requested that persons with any knowledge of Human Trafficking should provide information to the Royal Barbados Police Force which has a Sex Crime unit and is part of the Human Trafficking task force. It is difficult to know for certain whether or not the non-nationals were the victims of Human trafficking and due to the serious nature of the crime these claims should not be ignored.We therefore applaud the Lady Box project and the Zander Venezia Trust for making those women feel heard and providing them with the items they needed.
Although the Attorney General, last year in his address to mark World day against Trafficking in Persons stated that evidence does not suggest that Human Trafficking is a major problem in Barbados, the Government has still taken a firm stance against the crime which is in line with international standards and for this we commend them because this is a crime that is taboo and easy to ignore. In the address, the Attorney General added that it is largely an invisible crime which makes it difficult to detect,investigate and prosecute.
This year, international governments such as the US and UK have also provided our law enforcement officers with equipment and training on Human Trafficking prevention. More recently the Attorney General announced the readiness of the Barbados National Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking 2021 to 2023. However, Barbados has still found itself on the Tier 2 watch list for a third year in the annual Trafficking in persons Report compiled by the US Department of State. This suggests that the international community is aware that Barbados is making efforts to meet the international standards.
If we continue to put these protocols in place it is hoped that Human Trafficking will never become a major problem on our island. This would not make it impossible to have trafficking so citizens have been asked to be vigilant for persons who appear to be in distress and to report any suspicious activities to the relevant authorities.