The battle against Human Trafficking
While the Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report announcing the Maldives' upgrade to Tier 2, from Tier 2 Watchlist, may sound like a cause for celebration, there’s more to it.
Trafficking in persons is a crime in international law. Article 3(a) of the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons Especially Women and Children provides the sole internationally accepted definition of trafficking in persons:
Trafficking in Persons shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include at a minimum the exploitation of prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of human organs.
This may look like a slew of legal terms for the layman, but the structure of the definition rings true all over the world. There needs to be the act, the means, and the purpose of the exploitation for one to be charged with a breach of international law. However, what is key to this article is understanding what it means to be ranked in tiers in regards to the Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report, and what it means in regards to the national policies of the Maldives.
The U.S. State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons requires nations to submit reports within reporting periods, and by aligning these reports on the standards that have been agreed upon internationally, the State Department proceeds to release a thorough report and ranking each year for all member nations. It is dependant on the actions and efforts of the governments, their perceived efforts to acknowledge and combat human trafficking, and policy development and implementation.
Tier 1 are countries whose governments fully comply with the TVPA’s minimum standards. The Trafficking Victims Protection Act is a federal law for the U.S., so although other nations are not party to the law, this is the benchmark that the report measures against. Then comes Tier 2, which are for countries that do not comply with all of the TVPA’s minimum standards, yet are perceived to be making significant efforts to bring themselves to compliance in time.
The Maldives, while currently upgraded to Tier 2 after the last reporting period, has been very prominently in the rank right below that within the last decade. Tier 2 Watchlist is defined similarly as Tier 2, but the caveats are what sets them apart. Tier 2 Watchlist means that the number of victims, of the severity of trafficking, is either very significant or significantly increasing; there is a failure to provide evidence of increased efforts to combat TIP from the previous years; or finally, the determination of the country to come to compliance is based on the commitment to take future steps the following year. Ergo, there is potential, but they are not quite there yet.
The Maldivian government had brought into effect the Prevention of Human Trafficking Act (PHTA) in 2013, yet since then only twice have the administrations in charge managed to push up the ranking until the third time which was this July. In addition to ranking, the TIP Report also goes to the extent of describing how the current efforts are, what are the areas in which the government is falling short, and this includes all levels of dealing with TIP. The risk factors, the source countries of the victims, as well as the prosecution and rehabilitation efforts are taken into account.
According to the report, the current administration has been making certain headway that is worth mention. For those keen readers, here is an excerpt that deserves no paraphrasing:
The government demonstrated overall increasing efforts compared to the previous reporting period, considering the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on its anti-trafficking capacity; therefore Maldives was upgraded to Tier 2. These efforts included opening two investigations into cases allegedly involving government officials in trafficking or trafficking-related corruption; establishing the Office of Anti-Human Trafficking (ATO) headed by a Director in the Ministry of Defense (MOD); dedicating funding for the office and the national action plan (NAP) in the official budget for the first time; passing amendments to the Prevention of Human Trafficking Act (PHTA) to bring the definition of human trafficking in line with the 2000 UN TIP Protocol through all necessary parliamentary committees in preparation for a final vote; completing construction of a trafficking victims shelter; elevating the human trafficking unit in the Maldives Police Service (MPS) to an anti trafficking department; holding its first ever social media awareness campaign on International Migrant’s Day to raise awareness on human trafficking; and drafting several standard operating procedures (SOPs) for victim identification, shelter operations, and referral to victim services.
If read alongside the Maldives national Anti-Human Trafficking Action Plan 2020 - 2022, speaheaded by the Ministry of Defence under the guidance of Minister Mariya Didi, it would seem that the current administration is doing as promised. The report, however, delves further in describing certain shortcomings that also deserve proper mention, which, when looked at the bigger picture, aligns with the characteristics people have come to associate with this particular administration.
While reporting by the victims have been increasing, only two victims had their cases looked into. Furthermore, other victims have been held in detention for illegality in their stay — lack of work visa, passport, and other reasons — and despite the calls by NGOs for screening them as potential victims of trafficking, at the end of the last reporting period they were still in detention. The employers and recruitment agencies who are facilitating this heinous crime have not been held accountable, as no charges were filed against them despite repeated violations reported. The government had erroneously pursued the migrant workers, yet left the Maldivians’ involvement out of the equation.
Overall investigations, prosecutions, and even convictions, have decreased in number while certain complicit officials and their subsequent investigations were reported at length. PHTA has not criminalised all forms of sex trafficking and labour trafficking, creating inconsistency with the internationally agreed definitions, which also is seen as a shortcoming on part of the administration.
Finally, the report repeatedly describes how prosecutions are not following through. Reports of private firms holding passports, corruption in the ranks of the immigration officers, construction companies benefiting from false quotas extended by government officials, these are only a few of the many issues that are appalling enough to call for emergency measures. However, by the last reporting period, the TIP Report has shown that not enough work is still being done in terms of legal action.
When it comes to Human Trafficking and labour exploitation, there are incumbent powers and status quo that needs to be knocked down. The world is watching with keen interest to see how the government delivers their campaign promises, and there is much work still to be done, with two years left on their tenure.
