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Convictions of human traffickers remain low, sentences lenient
View(s):By Kapila Bandara
Sri Lanka convicted just four human traffickers, two sex traffickers and two labour traffickers, while freeing 22 suspects, the latest annual review on trafficking in persons by the United States Department of State says.
Sentences for human
traffickers continued to be lenient.
These convictions are in contrast to those of three sex traffickers under Section 360A of the Penal Code during the previous reporting period, the ‘Trafficking in Persons Report: Sri Lanka’ observes.
One convicted trafficker was ordered by a court to pay a fine or face six months of imprisonment. Another trafficker was sentenced to a year of imprisonment and ordered restitution to the victim.
The report, released every summer, helps governments, non-profits, and the international community to understand how countries respond to trafficking. It points out gaps and makes recommendations for combatting trafficking.
The report notes that by issuing lenient sentences to convicted traffickers, courts created potential safety concerns for trafficking victims and weakened deterrence.
Sri Lanka remains on Tier 2, which reflects countries whose governments do not fully comply with the minimum standards but are making significant efforts to comply with the standards.
Sri Lanka has signed the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons Especially Women and Children. This supplements the UN Convention against Transnational Organised Crime (2000), called the ‘Palermo Protocol’. In 2019, Sri Lanka ratified the ILO P029 – Protocol of 2014 to the Forced Labour Convention, 1930. In South Asia, Sri Lanka has signed the Convention on Preventing and Combating the Trafficking in Women and Children for Prostitution (2002).
The National Child Protection Agency received 128 calls about possible child trafficking, mostly through its hotline, compared with 86 cases of possible child sexual exploitation referred to police during the previous period, the report notes.
Efforts to halt trafficking are hindered by “credible reports of official complicity’’, while the Government may have inappropriately penalised some trafficking victims for unlawful acts committed as a direct result of being trafficked. The Government is not consistent in its approach to focusing on the victims of trafficking.
More victims have been identified and there has been support for repatriation of Sri Lankans from overseas, the report notes. A new shelter to support victims of crime, including trafficking victims has been opened.
Some restrictive migration policies that made Sri Lankan women increasingly vulnerable to trafficking had been reformed. Criminal investigations of recruitment agencies allegedly responsible for facilitating trafficking have begun. Licenses of more agencies have been canceled and more labour recruitment agencies were blacklisted. There is wider regulation of sub agents who charge high fees.
The extradition treaty with the United Arab Emirates was amended, the report says.
The report recommends that all recruitment fees charged by labour recruiters to workers be abolished and that victims be not penalised purely for unlawful acts committed as a direct result of being trafficked. These are among other recommendations, including increasing efforts to investigate and prosecute suspected traffickers, including labour traffickers and state officials allegedly complicit in trafficking. Safe and legal migration should be promoted.
The Criminal Investigation Department’s anti-trafficking unit and police initiated at least 34 investigations of 60 suspected traffickers (33 for sex trafficking and 27 for forced labour) and continued 11 investigations of 20 suspects, compared with 16 investigations of more than 63 suspected traffickers during the previous reporting period, the report notes.
Prosecutions have been brought against 23 suspects. Among them are 15 accused of sex trafficking (some of whom had multiple charges with 10 under procurement, 360A of the Penal Code; three under the sexual exploitation of children statutes, 360B; and six under the trafficking statute, 360C) and eight for labor trafficking (all under Section 360C). Prosecutions of at least 239 suspects from previous reporting periods have continued.
This is in contrast to 16 prosecutions, including 13 for sex trafficking (five under 360A; five under 360B; and three under 360C) and three for labour trafficking (all under Section 360C) during the previous reporting period.
It was in 2000 that the United States Congress first passed legislation to eradicate trafficking in persons under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. This also established the Trafficking in Persons Office within the Department of State.
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