US Not So Impressed With Caribbean On Measures To Deal With Trafficking In Persons

By Nelson King

WASHINGTON, DC CMC – As far as the United States is concerned, the Caribbean still has a long way to go in dealing with trafficking in persons (TIP).

According to the 2014 TIP report released by the US Department of State on Friday, at least seven Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries – Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Suriname – continue to be placed on the Tier 2 Watch List, because of the failure of the governments to fully comply with the minimum standards of the Trafficking Victims Protection Acts (TVPA).

But while Washington said they were making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with those standards, the absolute number of victims of severe forms of trafficking on that list is “very significant or is significantly increasing.”

The State Department said on the Tier 2 Watch List, there is also a failure to provide evidence of increasing efforts to combat severe forms of trafficking in persons from the previous year in these countries.

It said the determination that a country is making significant efforts to bring itself into compliance with minimum standards, in the Tier 2 Watch List category, was based on commitments by the country to take additional future steps over the next year.

The Bahamas, Barbados, St. Lucia and Trinidad and Tobago have now been added to the Tier 2 List with no CARICOM country being placed on the Tier 1 and Tier 3 Lists.

Washington said Tier 1 List countries fully comply with the TVPA minimum standards; while, those on  Tier 3, do not fully comply with the minimum standards and are not making significant efforts to do so.

Grenada, Dominica and St. Kitts and Nevis were omitted from the report altogether.

The report said that Antigua and Barbuda is a destination and transit country for men, women, and children subjected to sex trafficking and forced labour.

It said legal and undocumented immigrants from the Caribbean region, notably from Jamaica and the Dominican Republic, as well as from Southeast Asia, comprise the population most vulnerable to trafficking.

Despite measures in addressing trafficking in persons, the State Department said the Antiguan government “did not demonstrate overall increasing anti-trafficking efforts compared to the previous reporting period.

“For a second year, the government did not remedy a flaw in its human trafficking law affecting which court has jurisdiction over trafficking cases,” it said.

The report described Belize as a source, destination and transit country for men, women, and children subjected to sex trafficking and forced labour.

It said a common form of human trafficking in Belize is the coerced prostitution of children, often occurring through parents pushing their children to provide sexual favors to older men in exchange for school fees, money and gifts, adding that “third-party prostitution” of children under 18 is a form of human trafficking.

The State Department said child sex tourism, involving primarily US citizens, is an “emerging trend” in Belize.

Additionally, it said sex trafficking and forced labour of Belizean and foreign women and girls, primarily from Central America, occur in bars, nightclubs and brothels throughout the country.

The State Department also said Guyana faced similar situations like Belize and that foreign women and girls, including from Venezuela, Suriname, and Brazil, are subjected to prostitution.

The report said while the full extent of forced labour is unknown, there have been reports of forced labour in the mining, agriculture, and forestry sectors, as well as in domestic service and shops.

It said traffickers are attracted to Guyana’s interior mining communities, “where there is limited government control.”

The State Department said Guyana’s Ministry of Labour, Human Services, and Social Security “demonstrated concrete efforts to assist trafficking victims,” but added that “despite these efforts, the government did not demonstrate evidence of overall increasing efforts to address human trafficking over the previous reporting period.

“Guyana has an adequate trafficking law and achieved three trafficking convictions during the reporting period; however, all three convicted traffickers were released on bail pending the appeal of their convictions,” it said.

The State Department said most of Haiti’s trafficking cases consist of children in domestic servitude.

In addition to experiencing forced labour, it said these children are vulnerable to beatings, sexual assaults, and other abuses by family members in the homes in which they are residing.

The report said dismissed and runaway children from domestic servitude make up a significant proportion of the large population of children who end up in prostitution or are forced into begging or street crime.

It said children working in construction, agriculture, fisheries, and street vending are vulnerable to forced labour.

The report also said women and children living in Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps set up as a result of the 2010 earthquake were at an increased risk of sex trafficking and forced labour.

In addition, it said children in some “unscrupulous” private and NGO-sponsored residential care centres are at a high risk of being placed in a situation of forced labour.

The State Department noted that Haiti is placed on Tier 2 Watch List for a third consecutive year, stating that Haiti was granted a waiver from an otherwise required downgrade to Tier 3 because its government has a written plan that, if implemented, would constitute making significant efforts to meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and is devoting sufficient resources to implement that plan.

The report described Jamaica as a “source, transit, and destination country for adults and children subjected to sex trafficking and forced labour” and that children are subjected to sex trafficking. The report said the sex trade “remains a serious problem” and that trafficking of children and adults occurs on streets and in night clubs, bars and private homes throughout Jamaica, including in resort towns.

It said traffickers in massage parlors in Jamaica lure women into prostitution under the false pretense of employment as massage therapists and then withhold their wages and restrict their movement.

The State Department said people living in Jamaica’s poverty-stricken garrison communities, territories ruled by criminal “dons” effectively outside of the government’s control, are “especially at risk”.

It said NGOs express concern that children from poor families sent to wealthier families or local dons with the intent of a chance at a better life are “highly vulnerable to prostitution and forced labour, including domestic servitude.”

Other at-risk children include those working in the informal sector, such as on farms or in street vending, begging, markets and shops.

For a fifth consecutive year, the report said the Jamaican government did not convict trafficking offenders or officials complicit in human trafficking and “took insufficient action to address reports of official complicity.

“The government identified few Jamaican trafficking victims and failed to provide many of them with adequate assistance,” the report said.

The State Department said St. Vincent and the Grenadines is a source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to forced labour and sex trafficking.

The report said foreign workers employed by small, foreign-owned companies have been identified as particularly vulnerable to trafficking; and that men, women, and children remain vulnerable to forced labor in the country, primarily in the agriculture sector.

It said the government conducted three trafficking investigations during the year and increased its anti-trafficking awareness efforts in schools, but the State Department lamented that the government “did not demonstrate overall increasing anti-trafficking efforts compared to the previous reporting period.

“It did not prosecute or convict any trafficking offenders,” the report said, noting “the government neither demonstrated proactive victim identification efforts nor identified or referred any trafficking victims for care. This is a decline from the previous year when it identified five potential trafficking victims.”

The State Department said women and girls from Suriname, Guyana, Brazil, and the Dominican Republic are subjected to sex trafficking within Suriname.

Reported trafficking cases in Suriname’s remote jungle interior – which constitutes about 80 percent of the country – increased during the reporting period, the State Department said.

NGOs and government sources indicate that some women and girls are exploited in sex trafficking in Suriname’s interior around mining camps.

The report said the Surinamese government has not shown evidence of increasing efforts to address human trafficking compared to the previous year.

It, therefore, placed Suriname on the Tier 2 Watch List for a third consecutive year.

In the Bahamas, the State Department said migrant workers are “especially vulnerable to involuntary servitude,” particularly the thousands of Haitians who arrive in the Bahamas largely voluntarily to work as domestic employees and laborers.

Other large, vulnerable, migrant worker communities are from China, Jamaica, and the Philippines, the State Department said, adding that there were reports during the year that some US nationals who were locally employed had their movement restricted and passports taken, “activities indicative of human trafficking.”

The report noted that children born in the Bahamas to foreign-born parents do not automatically receive Bahamian citizenship and, therefore, face potential discrimination and vulnerability to trafficking.

In addition, it said economic migrants transiting through the Bahamas were vulnerable to trafficking.

Groups especially vulnerable to sex trafficking in the Bahamas include foreign citizens in prostitution or exotic dancing and local children under 18 engaging in sex with men for basic necessities such as food, transportation, or material goods, the report said.

The State Department said Barbadian authorities and non government organisations report that foreign women have been forced into prostitution in Barbados.

It said foreigners have been subjected to forced labour, most notably in domestic service, agriculture, and construction, adding that legal and illegal immigrants from Jamaica, the Dominican Republic and Guyana are especially vulnerable to trafficking.

The report said the prostitution of children occurs in Barbados, with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) documenting that “children engaging in transactional sex with older men for material goods throughout the Eastern Caribbean,” adding  that this is a “high risk group for human trafficking.”

The report noted that the Barbados government identified and assisted an increased number of trafficking victims during the reporting period compared with 2012.

The State Department, however, said that while no traffickers have been convicted of human trafficking offenses, the government arrested suspected trafficking offenders during the reporting period, including a government official for alleged complicity in trafficking.

The report said legal and illegal immigrants from Haiti, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, Guyana and South Asia, especially those working in domestic service, are the groups most vulnerable to human trafficking in St. Lucia.

It said there are indications that internal prostitution of St. Lucian children occurs, and that foreign women in prostitution are also vulnerable to sex trafficking.

According to the police and NGOs, pimps, strip club operators, and brothel owners are the most likely sex trafficking perpetrators in St. Lucia, said the report, adding that St. Lucians are also subjected to forced prostitution in other countries.

The report said the St. Lucian government demonstrated “significant progress” in the identification and referral of potential trafficking victims during the reporting period.

It said women and girls from the Dominican Republic, Guyana, Venezuela, and Colombia are subjected to sex trafficking in brothels in Trinidad and Tobago.

It said cases of forced labour have occurred in domestic service and in the retail sector, adding that law enforcement officials report Trinbagonian children were vulnerable to sex trafficking and forced labour, including the coerced selling of drugs.

The State Department referred to a 2013 study that indicates that individuals in establishments, such as brothels or nightclubs, throughout Trinidad recruit women and girls for the commercial sex trade and keep their passports.

This report, according to the State Department, also indicates that economic migrants who lack legal status may be exposed to various forms of exploitation and abuse, “which are indicative of human trafficking.”

As an island-nation outside the hurricane belt, Trinidad and Tobago experiences a steady flow of vessels transiting its territorial waters, some of which may be engaged in illicit and illegal activities, including forced labour in the global fishing industry, the State Department said.

It, however, said that, during the reporting period, the government “vigorously investigated” trafficking offenses and, for the first time, formally charged suspected trafficking offenders under its 2011 anti-trafficking law.

The report said while the Trinidad and Tobago government “proactively investigated government officials for trafficking-related complicity,” it has “yet to convict any individuals under its anti-trafficking law.

“A lack of formalized stand-alone identification procedures for front-line responders hindered the government’s ability to identify additional trafficking victims and increased the risk of their inadvertent arrest, deportation, or punishment,” the State Department said.