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Is Human Trafficking Taking Root?

Submitted by St. George’s Dragon   The US Department of State has just issued a report about human trafficking around the world. It sounds worthy but boring but you should set aside your scepticism and get interested as it’s about modern-day slavery. The report is about the extent to which countries around the world buy…

Submitted by St. George’s Dragon

 

Hon Dr Esther Byer-Suckoo, Minister of Labour

The US Department of State has just issued a report about human trafficking around the world. It sounds worthy but boring but you should set aside your scepticism and get interested as it’s about modern-day slavery. The report is about the extent to which countries around the world buy (mostly) women and children for sex, forced labour etc.

Setting aside fancy language, this is to a large extent about importing prostitutes. Barbados does not look good in the report as it scores Tier 2 (Watch List). For comparison, this is the same as Afghanistan. Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago, our Caribbean neighbours, are Tier 2, which is better.

Barbados has to get this under control, firstly, because morally we should as a country that was founded on slavery; secondly, because if we don’t it gives people the opportunity to take pot-shots at us. It may well be that Ester Byer-Suckoo, the Minister responsible for this, saw it coming as she has been reported in the papers for a while talking about the need for Barbados to address these issues.

If you want to read the report look at http://www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/2011/index.htm

20 responses to “Is Human Trafficking Taking Root?”

  1. David Avatar
    David

    It would be useful for the public to learn what demonstrable actions this government has taken to curb human trafficking. We have heard the ‘pretty’ talk especially from Minister Byer-Suckoo but what have we done?

  2. Rosemary Parkinson Avatar
    Rosemary Parkinson

    Seems to be David that nothing much has been done. A lot of talk that we need to get rid of this image but where is the legislation? And if we have it, why is it not being adhered to? Why is it being ignored?

    We have well-known traffickers of women here on the island some of whom suddenly have taken on jobs purported to be ‘attached’ to government as ‘consultants’…or so I have heard….sometimes rumours can be made up of a basis of truth and sometimes not. I am making sure I say that I have heard and not that I have seen or know.

    We live a double standard in Barbados, there is no doubt about that. We also live a standard of fear…fear that we will be ostracized for telling it like it is or pointing fingers for investigation. When one understands who attend these ‘houses’ all over Bridgetown and its surroundings (where many women, although purported to be there under their own will but often have their passports held by the owners, and get beaten up regularly for not dancing to the tune they must ‘dance’ to) then you have to understand why not more is done to stop this scourge on our society.

    Whilst I agree that those who come here seeking that kind of ’employment’ have often seen this as a way out of their economical strife…they are promised much and when they arrive their conditions are less than expected, and the terror they go through to be rid of this condition often os met with ‘reasons’ why they cannot leave – to me that is tantamount to keeping a slave.

    Same as when a child is sent to beg or a child is sent out to sell (legal or illegal) or a child is offered as a sex toy (and believe you me it is happening right here. Actually when a parent knows their child is being abused sexually by any family member and nothing is done about it…that in itself is a kind of slavery. School is negated for all of these various “jobs to make ends meet” and often when the child does not do as told, beatings ensue.

    David…there is much cleaning up to do. But how to do it when persons in certain areas of the society are not only privy but partake? How?? Sad as it is. These are the facts.

  3. David Avatar
    David

    @Rosemary

    We need Whistleblowers.

  4. jack spratt Avatar
    jack spratt

    Ms Parkinson seems to know or have heard quite a bit about local human trafficking. The law has been passed. We need reportage.

  5. Rosemary Parkinson Avatar
    Rosemary Parkinson

    Jack Spratt – eat this fat: we ALL know about human trafficking locally. If you pretend not to know…that’s your business. If you really do not know but want to know…ask how to get to any local “club” on the island, then ask some questions…you will get answers. Want to spill them? Go ahead. .

    I am a food writer. I get enough flack asking food questions. But I will stick to what I do best…report on the ills of what we are eating, and shout about what we should be not importing.

    ….but I will repeat again…WE ALL KNOW. And continue to say: BARBADOS IS A SMALL ISLAND WHERE EVERYBODY KNOW EVERYTING. Those who hide behind names like Jack Sprat and those who are bold enough to put their name where their thoughts are, ALL KNOW WHAT REALLY GINE ON BEHIND DE SCENES HERE.

    And yes! David and everyone else….a good reporter/journalist with a mission and with good connections to having his story published, should begin investigating human trafficking in Barbados…and blow it all out of the soil…we have enough pesticides there already, so if we can get rid of more why not? hmmm…By the way, is it not obvious why we have received the particular rating we received? You tink its because we sweet ’bout hey????

  6. David Avatar
    David

    A good place to start is to place the Immigration Department under the microscope.

  7. Truthman Burton Avatar
    Truthman Burton

    While we are talking about Human Trafficking, what is this going on over at BFP?

    Who is Fiesta Catering International Inc. ?

    Go to http://www.domaintools.com/

    Insert “FiestaCateringInternational.com”

    Domain Name: FIESTACATERINGINTERNATIONAL.COM
    Registrar: MONIKER

    Registrant:
    Donville Innis info@fiestacateringinternational.com
    Fiesta Catering International Inc.
    Harbour Industrial Estate Building #8
    204
    St. Michael, BB

    click photo for large (mature content, sorry.)

    Minister Inniss: It’s time to level with Barbadians…

    Name all the websites and businesses. Name the companies. Explain why payments were processed in Switzerland for a company registered in Barbados. The money went to a Swiss bank account! Tell us how your name came to be on the registered papers.

    Tell us when you left it all. Tell us that the current papers showing your name Donville Inniss with internet porn are false or in error. Tell us that your friends and family members have nothing to do with Fiesta Catering and that they are not carrying your share for you and protecting your public image.

    Maybe we made a mistake here, Mr. Inniss. Maybe there is a different Donville Inniss in Barbados whose name appears on these papers with your same corporate address. Tell us. We’re willing to listen.

  8. Truthman Burton Avatar
    Truthman Burton

    Mr. Donville Inniss, rumours of your alleged involvement in the porn business have been circulating for too long. Please clarify this matter for the Barbadian public, as TONY MARSHALL would say.

    The ball is in your court …. maybe this is one large coincidence, and there is another Donville Inniss, or maybe somebody maliciously used your name. It is best you bring some clarification. If this is not you, please make an outright denial, and ask the Police to investigate the person or persons who might have conspired to slander you.

  9. Colonel Buggy Avatar
    Colonel Buggy

    Like illegal drugs and the private PSV’s , Human Trafficking in this island appear to be the purvey of those a few notches above the man in the street. Many people her have not heard of the Ukraine, yet we had two women from there who were brought into the island for the purpose of prostitution, and by whom? A business man and sugar plantation owner.
    As the song goes, “Sweeter than sugar’,

  10. Sayed Avatar
    Sayed

    I laugh at the USA and their lists and I spit on amnesty international(AI). It seems AI chooses only to finger third world states in any of their accusations about abuse or torture. As for the USA, they should be at tier 10 of the trafficking list.

    I find them very condescending. I wonder if the USA department of state did a report on themselves like how they do for other countries, how it would look, objectively done of course. They have one of the most serious drug problems in the world, human servitude etc…

    Barbados was placed on tier two because it had not ratified the treaty on the UN protocol against transnational organized crime which we signed in New York 2000. In 2010 human trafficking legislation was passed, and we have now therefore ratified the treaty by putting in place local legislation to deal with the matter. Therefore we are no longer at tier 2.

    Also prosecution of human traffickers is difficult without the co-operation of the victims, unless we could produce other evidence, such as wire tapping of the traffickers phone calls to organize the crime, or video of their conducting the criminal activity. Both of which are inadmissible in our courts. So blame parliament.

    Admittedly we need to prosecute people without the witnesses/victims of this and other crimes, but how to do it without evidence? Human trafficking unlike drugs or firearms leaves no exhibit to produce in court as evidence of someones guilt, so you would need the testimony of the victim to say what was going on between them and the trafficker.

    good day

  11. jaysun Avatar
    jaysun

    truthman your comment is misleading and deceptive

    a simple google search on Fiesta Catering International reveals that it is merely a webhost. this means that whoever purchase web space or the domain name from Fiesta Catering International can do whatever they want with it whether it be create a site about gardening or a porn site.

  12. just only asking Avatar
    just only asking

    @truthman

    you are flogging a dead horse. So go and come again.

  13. Crusoe Avatar
    Crusoe

    From Reuters, an established news agency, we have a description of a special little house in Wyoming. It houses 2000 companies, mostly shell and shelf. Funny how rules apply to some countries and not others?

    finance.yahoo.com/career-work/article/113032/little-house-secrets-great-plains-reuters

    >>The secretive business havens of Cyprus and the Cayman Islands face a potent rival: Cheyenne, Wyoming.

    More from Reuters.com:

    • How 2 Shell Companies Duped the Pentagon

    • Video: U.S. House on the Prairie Where Corporate Secrecy Thrives

    • Self-employed? When to Graduate From Sole Proprietorship

    At a single address in this sleepy city of 60,000 people, more than 2,000 companies are registered. The building, 2710 Thomes Avenue, isn’t a shimmering skyscraper filled with A-list corporations. It’s a 1,700-square-foot brick house with a manicured lawn, a few blocks from the State Capitol.

    Neighbors say they see little activity there besides regular mail deliveries and a woman who steps outside for smoke breaks. Inside, however, the walls of the main room are covered floor to ceiling with numbered mailboxes labeled as corporate “suites.” A bulky copy machine sits in the kitchen. In the living room, a woman in a headset answers calls and sorts bushels of mail.

    ETC ETC

  14. Truthman Burton Avatar
    Truthman Burton

    @just only asking | June 30, 2011 at 5:33 AM |
    “@truthman, you are flogging a dead horse. So go and come again”
    **********************
    What exactly do you mean j.o.s.? As for me, I merely reposted part of an article over at Barbados Free Press that made a worrying mention of Donville Inniss. You don’t think there is need for clarification from him, or at least an unequivocal denial of his involvement?

  15. Truthman Burton Avatar
    Truthman Burton

    @jaysun | June 30, 2011 at 3:46 AM |
    “truthman your comment is misleading and deceptive. A simple google search on Fiesta Catering International reveals that it is merely a webhost. this means that whoever purchase web space or the domain name from Fiesta Catering International can do whatever they want with it whether it be create a site about gardening or a porn site.”
    *****************************************************
    Well Jaysun, muh boy! This matter might not be getting much traction here on BU right now, but what do you think of the reply someone posted over at BFP to the same statement you made to me and accussed me of being misleading? Remember that the statement WAS NOT MINE! All I doing is transcribing info from BFP. SEEMS TO ME THAT DONVILLE IS CAUGHT IN A REAL CURRINCULUM!

    “jaysun LIES!
    June 30, 2011 at 9:56 am
    jaysun must be Donville Inniss or a supporter to say so foolish a thing that is disprovable immediately. jaysun relies upon people not knowing what a Domain name is.

    Fiesta is not a webhost. Fiesta owns the brand “Orgasm.com”. That is right on the Orgasm.com website. “Orgasm.com is a registered service mark of Fiesta Catering International, Inc. and is used with permission.”

    Donville Inniss gave permission for Halo 9, Ltd. to use Orgasm.com.

    What about the money laundering into Switzerland? This is so big and the Barbados papers won’t touch it. The proof is on the internet you can see it.

    “jaysun” has to be Donville the pimp hisself!”

  16. Colonel Buggy Avatar
    Colonel Buggy

    A caller on a call-in show today appeared quite upset because as she put it women from two Caricom (named) countries and Columbia were coming in here and engaging in prostitution . What would people in the outside world think of Barbados?Would they see it as a place where they can come and engage the services of prostitutes?

    How many of us remember the days when the US and the Royal Navies came a-calling and those night clubs located from the corner of Nelson and Fairchild Streets up to Bay Street were jam packed .And somewhere along the route was an establishment , or at times bottling plant, operated by Harry Wills.
    And they were no Caricom or Columbian girls around.

  17. barcitizn Avatar
    barcitizn

    “Give me a break”… all this talk about human trafficking. Who are the biggest culprits human trafficking? Imagine a chinese construction company comes to Barbados , their bid on a large project; pays their workers $20 bds a day yet they claim at least $120 per day in the contract! I’snt that abuse and tantamount to slavery? the workers are crying yet no one is there to “interpret their claims”. The Caricom non- nationals charge $110-$120 per day and gets paid that for their services. Who’s getting rip off? And still we hear our Prime minister going to China to bring more of these Chinese who bring their citizens to rip off ! they Call that “economic cooperation” ! another pretty word!

    Want some Human traffickers? interrogate those you are accused and deported and if the Immigration officers not involved i’m an elephant. (the going rate is $2000 bds per deal). Every young woman coming from the caribbean destination between 16-32 is seen as a prostitute or “coming to sell something” . Most of them are sent back packing- except if they are accompanied by a white male tourist and checked in at a “big -up” hotel” they call that “tourism” then. The men are accused of drug trafficing and solicitation of work and packed back too.

    We need a mental change in Barbados. Barbados long time stood for decency ,truthfulness and respect in its dealings . But are we all going to wrap our selves in our flag ,just because corrupt administrators say so?. I am a barbadian -but not prepared to stand and get wrap up behind hypocrates in the name of being patriotic!

    Our late Prime minister David thompson rounded up non-nationals from all regions of the caribbean and ship them out like sardines while preaching integration and using ” document regularisation” as a tool to round them up, because of his election fares and enunciated by his “foreign affairs/immigration” consultant.

    The CSME was allowed to suffer and starve under his chairmanship. Now, The Honorable Freundel Stewart addresses the caricom committee with a speech full of untruths and dishonesty -using statistics that was out dated and alien to his administration. CSME committee can look foward to the same inept, snail coach progress as the Barbados economy is under his leadership.

    Barbados and now joined by several caricom states are adopting the same failed views of the former barbadian leader , fostering insularity in the region . There is indeed integration but not promoted within the region’s head . Caribbean citizens need to tell them stop wasting money talking and look at the citizens,as captured in stalin’s song .

    “Thanks” Sir. Edwin Carrington .. you listened and then give them a failing grade because after all the long talk something wasn’t adding up.

  18. killbeast Avatar
    killbeast

    “A Brighton man who operates a residential school for poor children and orphans has been indicted on charges of sex tourism.

    Authorities say Matthew Andrew Carter, 66, forced boys at his Morning Star Center school in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, to engage in sexual conduct in exchange for money, gifts or continued care at the school.

    The self-described missionary, who authorities say also goes by at least three other names, was arrested May 8 and is in custody in Miami on a charge of traveling to Haiti from the United States to engage in sex with minors from the mid-1990s until April.

    He was indicted by a grand jury in May and an overriding indictment was filed Thursday that adds three more charges. He faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted.

    “This defendant preyed on innocent Haitian children living in severely depressed conditions, making his conduct particularly deplorable,” said U.S. Attorney Wilfredo Ferrer in a statement Friday. “Rather than using Morning Star as he promised — to administer aid and provide sanctuary to needy children — he used the center to manipulate, abuse and sexually exploit them.”

    The investigation into Carter’s alleged crimes was conducted as part of Operation Predator, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement crackdown on human traffickers and international sex tourists.

    Court documents indicate 14 boys live full-time at the school and three others live there on the weekends. Some were sent by families; others are orphans.

    “For years, he sexually abused poor and orphaned children who depended upon him for food and shelter — all under the guise of doing noble work,” said John Morton, director of the immigration and customs agency.”
    From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20110625.

    ” Swede arrested in Germany for Haitian paedophile ring

    A Swedish teacher working in Berlin has been arrested on suspicion of abusing children, many of whom were victims of the 2010 Haiti earthquake. The 67 year-old was arrested at Munich Airport along with a 26 year-old Brazilian and a 57 year-old German, after allegedly trying to bring an 11 year-old Haitian boy into the country.

    According to German newspaper, the Berliner Morgenpost, the Swedish man is thought to be the brains behind a smuggling operation which sought to sell vulnerable children to a paedophile ring within Germany.”

    Read more: http://www.icenews.is/index.php/2011/04/21/swede-arrested-in-germany-for-haitian-paedophile-ring.

    “A Quebec aid worker pleaded guilty yesterday to multiple counts of sexually assaulting orphans in Haiti, becoming only the third Canadian convicted under laws against child-sex crimes committed overseas.

    Armand Huard, 65, admitted his guilt on 10 counts of sexually touching minors or inciting minors to touch him and was sentenced here to three years in jail.
    His guilty plea came on the day the eight victims – Haitian boys age 13 to 16 years old at the time of the incidents – were set to testify at his preliminary hearing by video conference from the Canadian embassy in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Their testimony proved unnecessary.

    Another aid worker, Denis Rochefort, 59, who was arrested with Huard in February, also pleaded guilty Friday to sexual assaults on six boys. He was sentenced to two years in jail, followed by three years’ probation.

    Justice Pierre Verdon, who sentenced both men, called their acts shameful for abusing the “poorest and the most vulnerable.”

    Rochefort was the second Canadian successfully convicted under a rarely used provision of the Criminal Code that allows police to charge Canadians for child-sex crimes committed in other countries. The law was enacted in 1997, but had only been used twice before.

    Donald Bakker, the first Canadian charged, pleaded guilty in 2005 and was sentenced to 10 years in jail for sexually abusing children in Cambodia.”
    By The Gazette (Montreal)
    November 18, 2008.

  19. killbeast Avatar
    killbeast

    “An American school founder who young Haitian men once hailed as a savior was sentenced Tuesday to nearly 20 years in prison for sexually abusing them.

    Douglas Perlitz, 40, was sentenced in federal court in New Haven, Connecticut, to 19 years and 7 months behind bars for abusing the Haitian men when they were boys under his care, said Bruce Foucart, special agent in charge of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Office of Homeland Security Investigations in Boston.

    “We’re very pleased with the sentence,” he said. “He was brought to justice and I hope it sends a strong message to people who are doing that or who are even thinking about doing that.”

    Judge Janet Bond Arterton imposed the sentence, which includes 10 years of supervised release.”

    From Vladimir Duthiers and Hannah Yi, CNN
    December 22, 2010.

  20. TheGazer Avatar
    TheGazer

    This is a 2015 report

    http://www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/countries/2015/243393.htm

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