Beware danger at our door

Barbadians are aware of human trafficking however, even more has to be done to raise their levels of awareness.

President of Soroptimist International of Barbados, Ramona Smart indicated that doing this was one of the aims of yesterday’s walk. The club additionally staged the walk in The City to commemorate World Day Against Trafficking in Persons, which this year was marked on July 30th. The activity forms part of organisation’s Purple Teardrop Campaign.

About 40 persons, which included representatives from sister clubs  Soroptimist International of Jamestown and the Business and Professional Women’s Club of Barbados, participated in the walk. The group moved off from Queen’s Park and journeyed to St. Michael’s Row, to Bridge Street passing the Treasury Building onto the Wharf Road to Princess Alice and then up Broad Street. Along this route, they handed out flyers to the public.

Smart explained the purpose of the walk was “to raise awareness of human trafficking in Barbados, many persons are not aware that actually occurs. People see it as something that happens in foreign territories… [or] in faraway lands but it happens right here at our doorsteps. So the whole purpose of the walk is to raise that awareness of what happens in Barbados with human trafficking.”

In 2013 the Soroptimist International of Barbados held a similar walk, Smart said since that occasion “persons are more aware” of human trafficking.

“Persons are hearing and becoming more aware and are becoming conscious of the methods they can use to get out of human trafficking. Particularly with the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a serious situation where persons who were trafficked to Barbados were actually abandoned here because they could not get back home and there were no resources for them here in Barbados. So the social services, the civic society organisations had to step in to assist those persons in terms of getting their day to day needs, meals and so on.”

Smart reminded persons to “contact the police if they suspect someone is being trafficked and they can also call the BPW Crisis Hotline.”(MG)