Transport Officers Learning How to Detect Human Trafficking

Trafficking in persons is a crime that involves forcing an individual to provide labor or services, or to engage in commercial sex acts.  Coercion can be subtle or overt, physical or psychological.  Taking advantage of minors for the purpose of commercial sex is also human trafficking, regardless of whether any form of force, fraud or coercion is used.  As part of the work that is being done in Belize, RET International is facilitating an important training event aimed at enhancing the capacity of transport officers to detect, respond and report instances of human trafficking.  Cherese Ferguson is the Country Director for RET.

Cherese Ferguson

Cherese Ferguson, Country Director, RET

“This initiative has come about from our work in trafficking.  We have two projects ongoing right now, the Safe Belize and the TLEAP which is currently being implemented with transport stakeholders.  With our consultation with the ATIPS council which is an arm of the government and other stakeholders, it was identified that the transport industry is a vulnerable industry for trafficking, persons being moved or transportation stakeholders being utilized to move persons from one area to another.  So it’s key for the awareness to be built within this industry so that persons know what is trafficking, what does it look like and how to prevent becoming involved in it.  We also touched a bit about the law as well.  So it’s an effort to raise awareness, increase awareness across the board and our transportation partners have been very receptive to the information shared.”