In Ireland, Gardaí have smashed two human trafficking rings in since the start of the year. In March, 5 Romanian citizens were arrested and in February 3 Ukrainians were detained, all on suspicion of trafficking women into Ireland for the purpose of sexual exploitation.  “This is being done as part of Operation Hotel under the suspicion that they had an involvement in bringing women into the State for the purposes of sexual exploitation,” confirmed a senior garda. The women are thought to have been trafficked into the country via Dublin airport and forced into prostitution in private houses in Dublin. None of the women were underage.

The UK government is expected to set up a national anti-trafficking task force. The move comes after the success of the four month long “Operation Pentameter” which has rescued 80 people who are believed to have been trafficked into sexual exploitation and also arrested 200 people in connection with human trafficking offences. A Pentameter spokeswoman said:
“We have rescued 80 alleged victims and it could well be the tip of the iceberg.
“That’s 80 people in a matter of months when only 14 were identified previously since the Sexual Offences Act 2003.
“We’ve turned over a stone here and in some respects we can’t put it back.”
The people rescued have come from countries in Eastern Europe such as Lithuania, Ukraine, the Czech Republic and Poland. They have also come from countries as far away as Brazil and Zimbabwe. With such a policing success it is important that the government also supports the law enforcement agencies by allowing proper care of victims after their release, including the option of staying in the country if they fear to return home.

The Burmese military Junta has rejected the 2006 US State Department Trafficking in Persons report which claims that Burma has a serious trafficking problem and is not doing enough to combat it. The report blames the regime’s economic mismanagement and human rights abuses for fuelling the trafficking problem. The report also draws attention to the fact that forced labour, a form of human trafficking, is still used by the Burmese military. The report states that
“ In 2005, the Burmese Government claims it prosecuted 426 traffickers in 203 cases under the new law and identified 844 victims; an indeterminate number of these cases actually involved severe forms of trafficking in persons. The government did not take action, however, against military or civilian officials who engaged in forced labor, and the ILO stopped submitting cases for investigations in April 2005.”
Perhaps predictably the Burmese government claimed that the US was making unjust threat of sanctions;
 “The proposed action of economic sanction based on this false classification is not only unethical and contradicts with international law but also affronts sovereignty and independence of states,” the Burmese Foreign Ministry said in its press release carried by the newspaper New Light of Myanmar.

This sort of reaction, which perhaps reflects the seriousness of the trafficking problem and the depth of corruption in the regime, will only serve the interests of the traffickers and condemn thousands more Burmese people to slavery.

Police in the Czech Republic have arrested six Vietnamese nationals, four men and two women, on suspicion that they were trafficking their compatriots into sexual slavery in Prague and southern Bohemia. The raids also released a young boy who was allegedly kept prisoner whilst ransom demands were made of his parents in Vietnam. The police had monitored the gang since last November, and it is alleged that they recruited young women in Vietnam, offering them waitressing jobs in the EU. The victim would have to pay the traffickers US$6,500 to arrange their travel. They only got as far as Russia legally, however, before being smuggled across Ukraine, Slovakia or Poland and into the Czech Republic. They then surrendered themselves to the authorities, but were taken by the traffickers from asylum facilities. It is alleged that the gang would then traffic them to the UK or Germany, or force them into prostitution to pay off a debt the traffickers now claimed they owed. This is a pattern which is being repeated across Europe. Gang members will face up to 12 years in prison if convicted.

Two men have been accused of human trafficking in Jamaica after allegedly trying to sell a 14 year old girl as a sex slave to a client in a exclusive hotel in New Kingston. It is alleged that Jamaicans Norcott Lloyd Graham and Agon Stephens tried to sell the girl to a man in a hotel room for US$900. The client, however, was an undercover agent from the US, investigating the trafficking of children into sexual exploitation. The agent contacted the Jamaican Organised Crime Unit and a sting operation was set up. The men deny the charges. 

Jamaica has, according to the US trafficking in Persons report 2006, made some modest improvements in combating the trafficking of people, but remains on the “watch list” as it continues to be a source country for women and children being trafficked into sexual exploitation and also a destination for women from the Dominican Republic and also Eastern Europe. It was found that corruption prevented many convictions in the area of human trafficking.