‘NO NEED TO FEAR’

BARBADOS has dropped from its “Tier Two” rating to “Tier Two Watch List” on the 2019 Trafficking in Persons, which was released last week by the United States Department of State.

However, Attorney General Dale Marshall gave the media the assurance that Barbados will make efforts to meet the requirements outlined in the report.

Speaking to the media on the sidelines of a Counter-Terrorism Table Top Exercise, which officially began yesterday at the Barbados Defence Force St. Ann’s Fort, the Attorney General said: “...We do have to meet certain international obligations and monitor the human trafficking possibilities and trying to eliminate those is what we are required to do. So we’ve slipped from Tier Two plain and simple to Tier Two Watch List.

“What this requires to do now is look at those areas in which we may have some issues and try to deal with them. We’ve tried to make a fairly convincing argument on behalf of Barbados in relation to the successes that the Police Force has been having, in terms of dealing with the prostitution rings and so on, that operate regionally.

“We have incidents, well known to Barbadians now, where prostitutes are arrested; strangely enough they seem to be fighting to stay in Barbados because they actually have the Government in court. They don’t want to leave.”

The Attorney General said also on the radar would have been medical schools, where in one instance students’ passports were withheld.

“So we think we’ve been doing a good job so far, but obviously there are some areas we have to look at. But there is nothing Barbados needs to fear, it just demonstrates the relationships between what we are doing in terms of fighting terrorism and trying to keep financing away from terrorism because part of the way in which terrorism is funded is through some of the very human trafficking issues that arise.

“It is something that is on our radar, but at this point even though we have slipped, there are no immediate issues and there is no impact on any of our international obligations in that regard. We always have to be concerned about it when our ratings move downward, but watch list means just that.”

The report, which came out on June 20, stated that the Government of Barbados does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking, but is making significant efforts to do so.

“These efforts included conducting raids on night-clubs suspected of trafficking, screening vulnerable individuals for trafficking, providing anti-trafficking training for immigration officials and the police force; and conducting public awareness campaigns.”

It was stated, however, that Government did not demonstrate overall increasing efforts compared to the previous reporting period.

“The Government identified no victims for the past two reporting periods, initiated no new prosecutions for the fifth consecutive year, and has never secured a trafficking conviction. The Government did not complete its national action plan or an anti-trafficking manual for interviewing and providing assistance for suspected trafficking victims.

“Government agencies continued to report a lack of resources for their anti-trafficking activities. The Government’s anti-trafficking law did not provide penalties that were commensurate with other serious crimes. Therefore, Barbados was downgraded to Tier 2 Watch List,” the report stated.

The report divides nations into tiers based on their compliance with standards outlined in the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000.

The Tier 2 Watch List includes countries whose governments do not fully comply with the TVPA’s minimum standards, but are making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with those standards and the absolute number of victims of severe forms of trafficking is very significant or is significantly increasing; or there is a failure to provide evidence of increasing efforts to combat severe forms of trafficking in persons from the previous year; or the determination that a country is making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with minimum standards was based on commitments by the country to take additional future steps over the next year. (JH)