Step up action on human trafficking

For three years Trinidad and Tobago has languished at a Tier 2 rating on the Traffic in Persons (TIP) report. That's not good enough by far.

In April, National Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds announced that Antoinette Lucas-Andrews, former director of international affairs at the ministry, had been contracted for six months to review the recommendations of the US State Department and advise the government on its anti-trafficking efforts.

Why wasn't this kind of action taken in the first place? How many human lives were endangered because TT failed to take its Tier 2 ranking seriously?

Moving from Tier 2 to Tier 1 demands a demonstrated practice of increasing investigations, prosecutions, and convictions of trafficking crimes, increasing assistance to victims and ensuring that government officials are not complicit in trafficking.

After three years at Tier 2, this country was scheduled to be downgraded to Tier 3 and only escaped that humiliation through a one-time waiver granted because of TT's plans to address the local trafficking situation.

Neither the UN nor the US seems to be aware of the local capacity to formulate sensible, detailed plans that never get executed. What's at stake for the country in a potential downgrade to Tier 3 runs deeper than any consequent shame and scandal.

A Tier 3 ranking, as designated by the UN TIP protocol and the US Trafficking Victims Protection (2000) Act, can lead to severe economic consequences as well. Potential impact from the public shaming of a Tier 3 ranking might include reduced foreign investment.

Also at risk are access to certain loans from the IMF and possible restrictions on foreign assistance. These might seem to be minor raps on the knuckles compared to more direct trade restrictions, but Tier 3 ranking is likely to trigger a slide in our national profile that TT cannot afford.

Rankings like these – including reports from Transparency International and Freedom House – are a way to exercise soft persuasion on nations, relying largely on social pressure at the global level to urge countries to more desirable action.

For some countries, like China, the Tier 3 ranking simply doesn't matter. In others, trade issues can be nuanced. The grading of Malaysia over the last eight years as it bounced between the Tier 3 and Tier 2 watchlist status despite damning evidence of trafficking violations and largely cosmetic corrective measures has been unfavourably linked to US interests in the 2015 negotiations over the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

TT has avoided dropping to the cellar position for a year, but what's required now is action on the corrective plan that bought the country time.

There is unlikely to be a second waiver under any circumstances other than demonstrated and direct engagement with the problem.