Freeing Human Trafficking Victims through Information

Juanna Murillo

The Anti-Trafficking in Persons Council alongside the International Organization for Migration continues to promote their “People not Property” awareness campaign.  This morning, a representative of the effort was a guest on Open Your Eyes Morning Show.  The Focal Point at ATIPS, Juanna Murillo, shared the fact that human trafficking is a reality in Belize.  She spoke about what the organization is doing to free trafficking victims through information.

Juanna Murillo, Focal Point, ATIPS Council

“When we think of Human Trafficking we often think there are no way these heinous things happen in our little Belize. We are excused from some of these heinous things, but it does happen. And, trafficking we see, is essentially at it core exploiting vulnerabilities in populations that are looking for something better. That is why we see persons from the LGBT community, migrants, persons in poverty where there are equalities. So, when you think of trafficking in person that is what you want to think about. And, what makes it different from other crimes is that it exploits people. So, its purpose is exploitation.  We recently had a meeting with Belize and Honduras, because most of our victims are coming from the northern triangle, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala. And so we had a meeting with the person responsible for trafficking in Honduras and we developed some prevention activities. We thought of how we can get information to these populations in both countries so that we can understand what their rights are and what their realities look like. And this is what is going to be a part of the awareness campaign that we are currently undergoing, to get the information to the people that really need to hear it.”