The issue of human trafficking will be in the spotlight when a number of panel discussions are held across communities to sensitise the public about this scourge.
Not Again: Trafficking in Persons – Modern Day Slavery is the title of the five-part series being hosted by the Bureau of Gender Affairs.
The meetings will be held on Wednesday, May 30, at the Valley Community Resource Centre, St. George; Wednesday, June 6, at the Queen’s Park Steel Shed, Bridgetown; Wednesday, June 13, at St. James Secondary School, Trents, St. James; Wednesday, June 20, at Alexandra School, Speightstown, St. Peter; and Wednesday, September 5, at Lester Vaughan Secondary School, Cane Garden, St. Thomas.
They will begin at 7:00 nightly, and officials from the Bureau of Gender Affairs and the Immigration Department, among others, will address the audience.
Human trafficking is a crime in which traffickers profit from the exploitation of individuals who are lured to places where they can be controlled. Victims are promised a better life and good jobs, but then forced into dangerous, illegal or abusive work. It is a rapidly expanding global phenomenon and is said to have many faces, including domestic servitude, forced labour and sexual slavery.
To eradicate any semblance of human trafficking in Barbados, Government has enacted the Transnational Organised Crime (Prevention and Control) Act, 2011-13; established a 13-member National Task Force for the Prevention of Trafficking in Persons, chaired by Attorney General Adriel Brathwaite; and scaled up the Bureau of Gender Affairs’ sensitisation programmes.
The Task Force’s mandate includes coordinating Barbados’ anti-trafficking activities, and developing and overseeing the implementation of the National Action Plan for the Prevention of Trafficking in Persons.