Marshalls rejects human trafficking criticisms

MARSHALL ISLANDS – The Marshall Islands government says human trafficking is not a prominent issue despite a US report condemning the country’s record.

In June the US Department of State released its 2016 Trafficking in Persons Report which says the Marshalls does not meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and is not making significant efforts to do so.

Among the criticism was forced prostitution of women and girls in the Marshalls who are recruited by foreign business owners to engage with crews of foreign fishing vessels that dock in Majuro.

But the Marshall’s Foreign Minister, John Silk, told Radio New Zealand’s Dateline Pacific that the criticism needs to be more “specific” and the US should offer help.

Silk says he would like the US government to share its information with the Marshall’s government to clarify the problems identified in the report.

“We have always been addressing these issues. We had hoped that the United States would come back to us and tell us what exactly they see that we haven’t done and share with us what they think we should be doing and help us out. Help us out and bring some experts and technical people to assist us.

The report does note tha anti-trafficking law enforcement efforts have been increased and that a national plan has been drafted but has yet to be approved. The report suggests that the effort so far hasn’t been good enough and some of the things it’s calling for are increased efforts to investigate and prosecute trafficking offences and to punish traffickers.

But Silk said the Marshalls doesn’t have the available resources to achieve this.

“We can’t, no. Obviously we need additional assistance to help us out. If they feel that we’re short on resources then they should come up with some suggestions on how we can meet our commitments and how we can accomplish our goal and provide the resources.

“I think in the field of prosecution we need more help and we need more help in terms of investigation.

“We are looking towards upgrading and getting some technical help in assisting our police force and in fact we are contemplating requesting some assistance from the government of Australia.

“Even today I might be sending off letters to the government of Australia. We have only five, as far as I know, five attorneys in the Attorney General’s office and we are working towards that.

“It’s one of the proposed amendments to our constitution, to set up a special prosecutors office that will address some of these issues.

Silk said human trafficking is not so much a major issue.

“We know, we suspect that there might be some trafficking following transhipment, boats that come in for transhipment and fisheries related activities, but we don’t feel that is really a prevalent thing here, we don’t see it that way.

But the US Department of State sees it differently and Silk wants to know why.

“That’s the thing, if the Department of State sees things differently, please tell us. Tell us what they see that we don’t see and share with us that kind of information.

“How they conclude and make their assessments, we don’t know – but we’d like to have them share those with us so that we can help us see things differently.” - RNZI