The Legislative Assembly passed a bill aimed at the prevention and suppression of human trafficking this week.
Attorney General Sam Bulgin explained the Trafficking in Persons (Prevention and Suppression) Bill 2007 was necessary to give full effect to an international convention the Cayman Islands is already a party to as an Overseas Territory of the United Kingdom.
‘The principal aim of this bill is to prevent and suppress the trafficking in persons and in particular women and children, who are inevitably the target of this scourge,’ Mr. Bulgin said.
The International Convention for the Suppression of Trafficking in Women and Children was approved by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1949.
Mr. Bulgin said the Convention calls on party states to punish traffickers in people and to protect all persons against such abuse, as well as some other things.
Since its UN approval, the Convention has also been extended to include the concepts of forced marriages and forced labour.
Under the new law, a person commits the offence of trafficking in persons if, for the purpose of exploitation, he recruits, transports, transfers, harbours or receives another person within the Cayman Islands; from the Cayman Islands to another territory; or from another territory into the Islands by specified means.
Those means include threat or use of force or other form of coercion; abduction; deception or fraud; the abuse of power, and the abuse of a position of vulnerability.
A person also commits an offence under the new law if he conceals, removes, withholds or destroys someone else’s travel document, or any other document that establishes another person’s identity or immigration status.
A travel document is defined in the law as a passport; a visa; a tourist card; or an airline ticket; and any other document used under the laws of a territory to establish identity in that territory.
Offenders under the law are generally liable upon conviction of a fine of $5,000 or imprisonment for 10 years, or both.
Mr. Bulgin said the increasing ease and frequency of international travel and the growing phenomenon of temporary migration for work has increased the opportunities for trafficking in people.
‘The growth of trans-national crimes involved in a variety of forms of trafficking, including drugs, has led to the expansion of these networks into trafficking for the purpose of prostitution and other forms of exploitation,’ Mr. Bulgin said.
‘It is therefore that, from the Cayman Islands perspective, even though there is no evidence that the activities detailed earlier might be occurring here, that as a jurisdiction we put in place the necessary legal and institutional framework to prevent these atrocities, and equally important, to be able to cooperate with other countries to prevent our borders being pierced by unscrupulous agents who are adept at deceiving parents and luring girls with false promises of well-paid work or marriages to new partners.”
Mr. Bulgin also said that the Cayman Islands had to be vigilant in ensuring its travel documents are not forged or falsified to facilitate the movements of trafficking persons.
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