Washington -- The U.S. State Department
has determined that three countries in the Americas -- Belize,
Cuba, and Venezuela -- are not meeting minimum standards
to fight trafficking in persons, a criminal practice which
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says is "more than
a human rights objective; it is a matter of global security."
In the department's 2006 Trafficking
in Persons Report, released June 5, the three countries
are placed on what is called a Tier 3 list, meaning that
their governments are not fully complying with the minimum
standards against trafficking in persons, and are not "making
significant efforts to do so." The placement is based
more on the extent of the government's action (or inaction)
to combat trafficking, rather than the size of the problem,
"important though that is," the report said.
The report assigns countries to one of four
categories. Countries doing the best job are in Tier 1.
Tier 2 comprises countries that are demonstrating commitment
to address their problems but have not yet achieved international
standards. Tier 2 “Watch List” includes countries
that show signs of falling backwards. (See related
article.)
BELIZE
Regarding Belize, the department's annual
report said women and girls are trafficked to that country,
mainly from Central America, and exploited in prostitution,
while children are trafficked there for labor exploitation.
The country's largely unmonitored borders
with Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico allow for the movement
of illegal migrants who are vulnerable to traffickers, while
girls are trafficked within Belize for sexual exploitation.
The report said Belize failed to "show
evidence of significant law enforcement or victim protection
efforts" in 2005, and that the country's laws against
trafficking remained "weak and largely unenforced."
CUBA
In Cuba, the report said, women and children
are trafficked for the purposes of sexual exploitation and
forced child labor, adding that the nature and extent of
trafficking in the country is hard to gauge due to the closed
nature of the Cuban government and a lack of nongovernmental
reporting.
However, the report said, Cuba is a major
destination for sex tourism, which largely caters to European,
Canadian and Latin American tourists.
Cuba's "thriving sex trade," the
report said, involves large numbers of minors. The report
said there is "anecdotal evidence" that state-run
hotel workers, employees of travel companies, taxicab drivers,
bar and restaurant workers and law enforcement personnel
are complicit in the commercial sexual exploitation of these
children.
VENEZUELA
The report said women and children from
Colombia, China, Peru, Ecuador, and the Dominican Republic
are trafficked to and through Venezuela and subjected to
commercial sexual exploitation or forced labor.
Venezuelans are trafficked internally and
to Western Europe -- particularly Spain and the Netherlands
-- and to other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean
for commercial sexual exploitation. The report found that
Venezuela is a transit country for illegal migrants from
other countries in the region -- particularly Peru and Colombia
-- and for Asian nationals.
The Venezuelan government has made some
"clear improvements" in anti-trafficking activities,
such as training officials and undertaking initiatives to
raise public awareness against trafficking in persons, but
the report found that these increased activities were not
matched by progress in prosecutions of traffickers.
The Venezuelan government "should increase
investigation and prosecution efforts against traffickers,
continue educating the public, and provide victim assistance
geared to the specific needs of trafficking victims,"
the report said.
HUMAN TRAFFICKING “TIER 2 WATCH LIST”
Several other countries in the Americas
were placed on what the State Department calls its "Tier
2 Watch List." These are countries that the Department
says should receive "special scrutiny." Countries
listed in this group are Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Jamaica,
Mexico and Peru.
Argentina was placed on the watch list "for
its failure to show evidence of increasing efforts to combat
trafficking" in 2005, particularly in the "key
area of prosecutions." In addition, the Argentine government's
efforts to improve interagency anti-trafficking coordination
"did not achieve significant progress in moving cases
against traffickers through the judicial system." However,
the report said, Argentina did make progress in other areas
including submitting anti-trafficking legislation to its
Congress in August 2005 and "sensitizing provincial
and municipal government officials to the trafficking problem."
Even though Bolivia moved up from its Tier
3 listing in the 2005 report, the country was placed on
the Tier 2 watch list for its failure to show evidence of
increasing efforts to combat trafficking in the areas of
trafficking prosecutions and victim protection. Brazil was
put on the watch list for its failure to show evidence of
effective criminal penalties against traffickers who exploit
forced labor.
After being placed in Tier 3 in 2005, Jamaica
was put on the watch list in 2006 based on the Jamaican
government's commitments to take "future steps"
to fight trafficking in persons. However, the report said,
very few investigations against human trafficking have led
to prosecutions.
Mexico remains on the watch list for the
third straight year "based on future commitments"
of that country's government to undertake additional efforts
in prosecution, protection, and prevention of human trafficking,
the report said.
Peru is on the watch list for its "failure
to show evidence of increasing efforts to eliminate trafficking
over the previous year." The report said the Peruvian
government should prosecute trafficking cases more promptly
and increase protection for victims.
The full
text of the 2006 Trafficking in Persons Report
is available on the State Department Web site.
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