The U.S. Cuts Aid to Belize Due to Lack of Progress on Human Trafficking

The U.S. government has determined it will be withholding aid to Belize for various programmes. Earlier today, the State Department announced that President Donald Trump had signed off a decree to stop assistance to a number of countries.  In the case of Belize, the U.S. will not provide non-humanitarian and non trade-related assistance for the financial year 2019 until the government complies with the minimum standards or makes significant efforts to comply with the U.S. Human Trafficking Act.  Others affected in this region are Bolivia and Venezuela, but it extends to a group of countries primarily in Africa and Asia. Alarm bells sounded from earlier this year, when the U.S. determined that Belize does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking nor are there significant efforts to do so.  Belize’s status thus remained on Tier Three. The State Department report, however, found that steps were taken to address trafficking, including the identification of seventeen potential trafficking victims and the investigation of nine trafficking cases. But it noted that there were no new prosecutions or conviction of traffickers; the government also did not investigate or prosecute any public officials for complicity in human trafficking-related offenses, despite allegations of a significant level of official complicity. The report also stated that few trafficking crimes were found because of limited intelligence-gathering, inconsistent application of formal victim identification procedures, and suspected complicity among some law enforcement officials. It also found that victims were penalized for unlawful acts committed as a direct result of being subjected to trafficking.