Belize Upgraded in Human Trafficking Rank

Dolores Balderamos-Garcia

The U.S. Secretary of State has released its twenty-second annual Trafficking in Persons Report and has upgraded Belize’s status to Tier Two. It’s a significant improvement that comes after two years of being placed lower on that index.  The report highlights, quote, that the Government of Belize demonstrated overall increasing efforts compared with previous reporting period, considering the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on its anti-trafficking capacity, unquote. In a release from government, the Briceño administration is pleased with the upgrade but acknowledges that there is more to be done to combat human trafficking in Belize. News Five spoke by phone earlier today with Minister of Human Development Dolores Balderamos-Garcia.

On the phone: Dolores Balderamos-Garcia, Minister of Human Development

“As you would know, and I want to make this pellucidly clear, as you would know, a country, in terms of the U.S. ranking, can’t remain on the Tier Two watch list for more than two years and that is where we have been up to this year, 2022.  So in their ranking we would either have had to go down or go up because they kinda give you a little bligh, if I could put it that way, but not for more than two years.  So we would either have had to go down to Tier Three which would have been… or we would have had to go up, the upgrade to Tier Two which is showing that the U.S. is recognizing that there have been significant efforts.  But I want to make it abundantly clear that Belize has been upgraded and that the government, we are pleased about that.  Now that doesn’t mean that we are home and dry because, as you know, the mighty United States, they can rank us and they do so and I do want to say though that we fight human trafficking not because the U.S. is telling us that we have to do it, but it is because it’s the right thing to do.  And I feel gratified that we have revamped our unit in terms of the trafficking in persons.  We are working very closely with immigration, labor, the ATIPS unit of the police department and, of course, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions and we do have to tip our hat to the D.P.P. and her office for achieving several convictions in the last period and making sure that we are being kept on track.”