The Ministry of National Security has announced the establishment of a National Task Force on Trafficking in Persons to enhance The Bahamas responsiveness to what is today regarded as one of the most significant and quickly growing illegal criminal activity taking place world-wide.
Trafficking in persons, a serious violation of human rights, involves a broad range of activities that exploit people for profit, using coercion, force or fraud. Sexual exploitation and forced labour are the first and second most common forms of trafficking in persons. The majority of trafficking victims are women and girls, and numerous of them are children. It is estimated that upwards of two and a half million people are trafficked annually, many leaving their homes, communities and countries not knowing the suffering and deprivation that will become a fact of life for them.
The National Task Force is an operational entity. Its representatives will take the action necessary to deal with trafficking matters from the time that a trafficking victim is identified to the time that the trafficker is prosecuted before the courts and any other matters thereafter.
The decisive action that is being taken in this area meets the country’s responsibilities under the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, Supplementing the United Nations Convention on Transnational Crime. The Bahamas ratified the Protocol in 2008, and in that same year, enacted its 2008 Trafficking in Persons (Prevention and Suppression) Act.
Government Ministries/Agencies that comprise the Task Force are: the Office of the Attorney General and Ministry of Legal Affairs, the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Health and Labour and Social Development, the Royal Bahamas Police Force, the Royal Bahamas Defence Force, the Department of Immigration, and the Customs Department. The Government will expand its traditional partnership with civil society by inviting concerned non-governmental, community and faith-based organisations to nominate representatives to the National Task Force.
The matters that fall within the purview of the National Task Force are set out in the 2008 Act and include: trafficking in persons investigations, prosecution, and the protection of victim’s rights, such as immigration status, housing, legal representation, counselling and other relief and assistance required to meet the urgent human needs of victims. The Task Force’s responsibilities do not include illegal immigration or migrant smuggling, although it will be vigilant to ensure that there are no trafficking in persons victims in illegal migratory flows.
The establishment of the Task Force is a recommendation of the Government’s Inter-Ministry Committee on Trafficking in Persons (TIP Committee), chaired by A. Missouri Sherman-Peter, which is comprised of representatives from a broad range of Ministries/Agencies of Government. The recommendation follows a series of activities managed by the Committee.
Among the activities the TIP Committee has spearheaded is a Public Forum on Trafficking in Persons which was held on 21 March 2012 to foster greater public understanding of the complexities involved in trafficking in persons, and the difference between trafficking in persons and illegal immigration and migrant smuggling. The Committee also spearheaded the organisation of a United States Government sponsored Training Exercise that was held 23-25 March 2012, which involved Government officials from a broad range of Ministries/Agencies and NGOs and other civil society organisations.
Since its establishment, the TIP Committee has been in continuous dialogue with United States Government officials regarding the mutual interest of The Bahamas and the United States in trafficking in persons matters. This ongoing discourse is in keeping with the Government’s pledge to cooperate with other countries in countering the crime of trafficking in persons.
