Sierra Leone Telegraph: 01 March 2022:
Yesterday, President Julius Maada Bio renewed his government’s commitment to working with stakeholders and development partners to address people trafficking – a form of modern-day slavery that constitutes a crime against the individual and the state.
In his keynote statement to the opening of the national conference on trafficking in persons, the President said within the policy and regulatory space, his government has worked with partners to launch a comprehensive national migration policy for Sierra Leone.
“We are making efforts to structure and monitor labour migration through the Ministry of Labour and Social Security in ways that make migrants less susceptible to exploitation and trafficking. There are more possibilities for inter-agency and partner collaboration to get labour migration right.
“Domestically, we are reviewing and improving on the Anti-Human Trafficking Act of 2007, Act No. 7. The Anti-Human Trafficking and Migrant Smuggling Bill 2021 is more expansive, in accord with international best practices, and addresses a wider variety of crimes including debt bondage, sexual servitude, illegal removal of organs, and all forms of migrant smuggling,” he said.
He called on the international community to significantly increase the risk of trafficking in persons, assuring them of Sierra Leone’s readiness to cooperate with Governments and organisations that are or will work towards those steps.
“Working with partners, the Office of the Vice President and the Ministry of Social Welfare have also established immediate strategic priorities for reducing human trafficking in Sierra Leone from 2022-2023. These strategic actions include training investigators, law enforcement officials, first responders including social workers, and judges. It will also involve stakeholder and community engagements on identifying, reporting, and cooperating on prosecuting human trafficking cases in all its forms.
“But we also believe that we can and we should harness the power of data to augment our fight against trafficking in persons. I am pleased to hear, for instance, about the work of the IOM [International Organisation for Migration], Irish Embassy, the EU, APRIES, the EU, and the US Government. I am also pleased to hear about the work of Professor David Okech that supports training Sierra Leoneans to use data to inform counter-trafficking programmes and policies,” he said.
Minister of Social Welfare, Baindu Dassama, said that the aim of the conference is to bring together all stakeholders working to reduce child trafficking in the country, adding that the issues of women and girls are at the center of the conference because they are highly affected by ugly inhuman treatment.
United Nations Resident Coordinator in Sierra Leone, Dr Babatunde A. Ahonsi, said that trafficking in persons, is a hideous criminal activity that constitutes an affront to human dignity, as it often entails serious human rights violations and abuses.
He further noted that the Government of Sierra Leone, its development partners, including the UN, are working together to tackle trafficking in persons despite various constraints related to the COVID-19 pandemic and the adaptability of the traffickers to evolving situations.
“This National Conference is a timely opportunity to reflect and plan for actions to continue the joint fight towards ending Trafficking in Persons in Sierra Leone. The United Nations in Sierra Leone, through IOM and UNODC will continue to support the strategic priorities of the National Trafficking in Persons Taskforce, looking pragmatically at the 3Ps and the outcomes of this National Conference,” Ahonsi said.
Morden day human trafficking or to put it more bluntly human slavery is once again a sickening reality that we all know exist within our countrys borders and internationally, but do to lack of education on this particular subject of human suffering, it is impossible to reach a consensus on the scale of the problem and how deep it is embedded in our country. Highlighting human trafficking by President Bio is great and he should be commended for that. It is just part of the massive educational drive needed to drive home this human suffering, that quite often reduces the value of human lives like ordinary commodities that can be exchange and sold likes groceries in a supermarket. Which ever way we look at, human trafficking is getting bigger and more sophisticated the way criminal networks operate in every corner of the world. The human traffickers are always one curve ahead of law enforcement agencies. In some countries, there has been cases where some bent cops have benifeted from this diabolical human trade. The Philippines, Nigeria, Italy, and Mexico and Colombia.
And quite often driven by the drugs cartels. And no country is immune from this criminals activity of the human traffickers. Your country can be the source, the transit point or the destination. And sometimes the victims of this Morden day form of slavery is hidden in plain sights. Bio is right in saying, we need to work with our international partners to adapt and collaborate with law enforcement agencies around the world if were to stand any chance of fighting this evil man is capable of inflicting on their fellow human beings. Educatiing the population so people can get a clear understanding of what the human trafficking problem is and how it affects disadvantage families and our communities up and down the country , is a fist step. Also encouraging victims to come forward and share their experiences on national television and social media outlets, will go long way to prevent valuable groups, especially women, girls and young men that are forced in to this positions with the promise of a better life in the future.
Lets be clear there is no future for the victims of human trafficking. And most importantly government should set up a special operational unit that will enhanced the capabilities and help available to victims. But as always with Bio, he is the encyclopedia of all the problems of Sierra Leone, and he likes to highlight them to our international development partners, but when it comes to making the difficult decisions to tackle the problems facing us, he is always playing catch up. Is not good enough.