BARBADOS
Coalition to create greater awareness of human trafficking
Advocate Barbados
Barbados is just one of seven countries chosen for the International Organisation for Migra-tions (IOM) Country Awareness Programme, to sensitise persons to the issue of human trafficking throughout the Caribbean. The organisation is providing training and technical assistance as well as grants for the awareness programme, and the IOM will be providing the arm responsible for the outreach programme in Barbados, with a further money grant, to assist with the specific needs of the country in relation to this issue, after the initial phase.
Coalition to create greater awareness of human trafficking
Barbados is just one of seven countries chosen for the International Organisation for Migra-tion’s (IOM) Country Awareness Programme, to sensitise persons to the issue of human trafficking throughout the Caribbean. The organisation is providing training and technical assistance as well as grants for the awareness programme, and the IOM will be providing the arm responsible for the outreach programme in Barbados, with a further money grant, to assist with the specific needs of the country in relation to this issue, after the initial phase.
This information has been revealed by Pat Seale, of the Business and Professional Womens Club, who was also chairperson of a recent meeting of the Coalition to Raise Awareness on Trafficking in Persons in the Caribbean.
The IOM, she said, wants to create awareness for people of Barbados and for the greater Caribbean. She told the Barbados Advocate that the first part of the project will commence in Barbados through a series of community outreach sessions, starting on Friday October 21. The three communities of Speightstown, Oistins and Bridgetown have been chosen she revealed, and persons within these communities will be provided with the details of human trafficking.
Barbados, because of its strong economic position, can be seen as a destination country. It has even been suggested that Barbados could even be a trans-shipment point, where persons from here can be taken to other countries, Seale stated.
What we are really trying to do is to provide an understanding for persons, about who could be vulnerable to trafficking, the different methods of trafficking, the dynamics of trafficking and how it impacts on the victims themselves. Right now we are setting up a telephone number where persons can call if they suspect that they are victims or if they know someone who is a victim and our personnel will be trained in all aspects of trafficking, she added.
In explaining just how The Coalition to Raise Awareness on Trafficking in Persons in the Caribbean came about, Seale stated that the Coalition was organised in response to a programme originally brought to Barbados in June 2004 from the International Organisa-tion for Migration (IOM). The Organisation contacted the Bureau of Gender Affairs in an effort to bring to Barbados a programme for the awareness of the Barbadian public, on what human trafficking involves. Two training sessions conducted by IOM personnel were held last year to sensitise persons to the issue, consisting of a one-day seminar in June and a two-day seminar in November and a number of organisations in Barbados were invited to these conferences. The conferences were set aside to discuss what trafficking entails and how it differs from the issue of smuggling. The setting up of an awareness programme, however, was the main focus of the second session she explained, and this is the stage Barbados is now at