Anti Trafficking in Persons Unit continues Awareness Campaign

The members of three organizations here are better equipped to detect acts of human trafficking.{{more}}

On Wednesday, the Anti Trafficking in Persons Unit (ATIPU) of the Royal St Vincent and the Grenadines Police Force completed its most recent sensitization campaign with the hosting of a workshop geared towards members of the Customs and Excise Department at the Old Montrose Police Training School.

During the past week, awareness sessions on human trafficking with reference to St Vincent and the Grenadines were also held with members of Soroptimist International St Vincent and the Grenadines, as well as employees of the Ministry of National Reconciliation.

At the workshop with the Customs and Excise Department, as well as at the other awareness meetings, Sgt Junior Simmons, Deputy Head of the Anti Trafficking in Persons Unit (ATIPU), explained in details the United States of America Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act (2000), which gives the US unilateral power to assess what other countries are doing to curb the problem of trafficking in persons.

This Act requires governments to uphold a set of standards among them to prohibit severe forms of trafficking in persons and to make serious, as well as sustained efforts to eliminate forms of trafficking in persons in their country.

“Trafficking in persons has no face. We cannot say a police or customs officer is a trafficker; anybody can be a trafficker. It can be a pastor, it can be anyone,” Simmons explained.

Simmons, explaining the types of human trafficking, said they include sexual exploitation/slavery, labour exploitation/forced labour, domestic servitude/slavery, organ exploitation/sales, child pornography, drug trafficking, child soldiers, and street begging.

He further explained that traffickers recruit their victims through forcible means, as well as partial and full deception.

Simmons said trafficking in persons is the second most lucrative criminal activity globally, second to drug trafficking, with annual earnings of US$9-25 billion. He added that according to the US State Department, some 600,000 to 800,000 persons are trafficked globally, with over one million children being victims on a yearly basis.

He made it clear that traffickers coerce and control victims through disorientation of victims, by increasing the level of vulnerability (moving victims frequently from place to place); removal and retention of travel documents (passport and identification cards); debt bondage (the victim has to pay back an exorbitant sum of money); confinement/isolation (harboured in a house with little or no contact with the outside world); and physical violence.

Simmons disclosed that the Government of StVincent and the Grenadines has made several steps to combat human trafficking,such as enacting the Prevention of Trafficking in Persons Act, (No.27 of 2011), the establishment of the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Unit (TIPU) in the Royal StVincent and the Grenadines Police Force, formation of the National Task Force Against Trafficking in Persons, and tightening SVG’s visa requirements.