What has been described as the fast growing and lucrative global trend of human trafficking is pushing local officials to tighten the country’s existing pieces of legislation, a goal they are hoping to soon achieve.
According to Labour and Immigration Minister Shane Gibson, this means making the necessary amendments to the Immigration Act.
Officials say while the Act essentially addresses the problem, international organizations are pressing the government to include the words “human trafficking” in the legislation.
Several immigration officials were also appointed to an internal committee in May to draft recommendations for additional proposed amendments to the Act.
According to the minister, the government is looking at the possibility of banning certain types of vessels from trading between here and The Bahamas.
“The wooden sloops are mainly used to traffic illegal immigrants. There are no metal, no engine or other types of facilities that are usually required on these vessels,” he explained.
“And so we are looking at the Department of Immigration along with the Ministry of Transport to ban certain types of vessels from trading between the two countries. Of course we would have to look at this issue realistically to see the impact of going ahead with the plan.”
The Committee was expected to present its report in July, but that has not yet happened.
“My desire was to have the recommendations ready to be presented next month so that we would have the first reading when the House resumes following the summer recess,” Minister Gibson said.
“We are behind schedule right now but I am hoping that those recommendations come in so that I can soon present them to my colleagues. Once this is done, they can be laid on the table (of the House) during the next session.”
In its report “Exploratory Assessment of Trafficking in Persons in the Caribbean Region,” the International Organization for Migration (IOM) noted that trafficking in persons is a modern-day form of slavery, involving victims who are typically forced, defrauded or coerced into various forms of exploitation.
Men, women and children are treated as inexpensive, expandable and profitable commodities used for financial gain.
In its analysis on The Bahamas, the IOM concluded that overall, findings indicate that while there are cases of trafficking in persons in The Bahamas, “in the strictest sense fulfilling all aspects of the legal definition of human trafficking, these are few.”
“For instances, although irregular migrants may embark on their trip to The Bahamas voluntarily, the vulnerabilities that motivate them in doing so render them susceptible to exploitation in employment and living arrangements upon arrival in The Bahamas,” the report read.
“In quantitative and qualitative terms, a picture emerges inferring that The Bahamas is fertile for facilitating the criminal activity of trafficking human beings.”
Assistant Director of Immigration William Nottage recently recounted two known cases of trafficking in persons, the first involving an employment agency which advertised in foreign newspapers for domestic workers.
According to Mr. Nottage, when the persons applied and were accepted, transportation was arranged and the persons were told what to tell immigration officials on arrival.
“They met all of the normal visitor requirements, but the rest of the story is not so good,” he said.
“On arrival, their passports were taken, supposedly to get their documents in order, living conditions, work hours etc, until someone got tired and wanted to return home. She made her way to the Department (of Immigration) and the story began to unfold. The operation was shut down.”
In the other case, a nightclub, which Mr. Nottage did not name, brought in “cabaret dancers,” who “did everything but dance.”
“A group of them came to the department wanting to leave the country and could not because they were not in possession of their passports and airline tickets, he said.
“The documents were being held by the club owner who refused to return them because he felt that he had not received adequate returns on his investment. He had to be pressured into assisting them to their homeland.”
Just recently, immigration officers carried out at an apprehension exercise in Exuma.
Officials say in the bushes, there was evidence to suggest that the illegal immigrants were employed.
“How many bosses do you think come forward to say that they owe some of them a weekﾒs salaryﾅWe have to be very cautious because we may not know a lot of thingsﾅThe problem is unlike drug trafficking where there are various signs we can look for. Human trafficking is not an exact science,” Mr. Nottage explained.
“We have over five million visitors a year. How do you adequately police this? And then, traffickers school their people. They tell them what to say, give them the necessary documents, they dress well and they meet all the necessary visitor requirements. Not until they get where they are going, the real story comes out.
“And they find themselves sometimes in a very compromising position. They control people by making threats, taking away their passports and one of the major things, their dignity.”
The smuggling of migrants is another issue that officials are expressing “major” concern about.
In this case, smuggling is typically done to obtain ﾖ either directly or indirectly, a financial or material benefit of an illegal individual.
“It is very easy for individuals to smuggle persons into The Bahamas and when you look at some of our ports of entry that are not manned by trained persons, some individuals come straight through,” Minister Gibson said.
“In fact, if we were to be honest, itﾒs happening on a regular basis.”
Police said they cracked a human smuggling ring just this past weekend. Police reportedly found eight Guyanese ﾖ four men, four women ﾖ and one Jamaican male stowed away on a vessel at Bay Shore Marina on Easy Bay Street.
By: Macushla N. Pinder, The Bahama Journal
