From CARIBBEAN360

KINGSTON, Jamaica, Sunday August 2, 2015 – So serious is the Jamaica government about ridding the country of the scourge of human trafficking that the topic will be integrated into subjects taught in secondary schools across the island from the upcoming academic yer.

Teachers are being trained through the Ministry of Education, in preparation for the introduction at Grade Seven to Grade Nine levels in pilot schools next month.

The curriculum, which was developed by the National Task Force Against Trafficking in Persons, is geared towards helping schoolchildren see the issue as a global crime, as well as getting them to identify means of preventing it and helping to reduce the vulnerability of people, especially children and young people.

Human trafficking is considered a modern-day form of slavery involving victims being forced, defrauded or coerced into exploitative circumstances.

Assistant chief education officer in the Core Curriculum Unit Dr. Clover Hamilton-Flowers said her department had identified areas in Social Studies, Religious Education, Information and Communication Technology, Physical Education and Sports, as well as in History, in which topics from the human trafficking curriculum will be integrated during lessons.

Statistics from the International Labour Organisation (ILO) show that nearly half of the 1.2 million children trafficked worldwide each year are from Latin America and the Caribbean.

The National Task Force Against Trafficking in Persons in the Ministry of Justice says trafficking victims in Jamaica are predominantly females (79.3 per cent) between the ages of 18 and 24 years, have secondary education (89.7 per cent), and are from the working-class or a poor background (86.2 per cent).

The efforts being made to increase awareness about the crime, from secondary school level, comes against the background of United States (US) authorities maintaining a Tier 2 Watch List ranking for Jamaica in its 2015 Trafficking in Persons Report which was released last Monday.

The ranking means that Jamaica does not comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking, but it is making significant efforts to do so.

The US State Department said Jamaica’s ranking remained unchanged because the government “did not demonstrate evidence of overall increasing anti-trafficking efforts compared to the previous period”.

The Portia Simpson-Miller administration said it found that conclusion “perplexing” and “unfounded” and it was deeply disappointed with some aspects of the report, including allegations that sex tourism is a problem in Jamaica’s resort areas and that policemen were complicit in prostitution rings which recruit children and coerce adults into the sex trade.

“The government once again emphasizes that it has no knowledge, record or information to support any activities that could be described as sex tourism as defined by the United Nations. There is no information to suggest that the structure or network of the tourism industry facilitates a sex tourism trade in Jamaica. No specific instances of sex tourism are cited in the report and none has been disclosed to the government. This allegation therefore appears to be based on anecdotal inferences, and does not appear to be evidence-based,” the government said in a statement.

Regarding the claims being made against law enforcement officials, it added: “The government has received no such report, and again this allegation does not appear to be evidence-based. The government continues to welcome any evidence which the US government can provide so that this allegation can be fully investigated, as claims without any substantiation are not helpful.”

Defending Jamaica’s anti-human trafficking efforts, the government pointed out that the report itself had acknowledged the positive steps made over the past year, including: naming a National Trafficking in Persons Rapporteur, the first of its kind in the Caribbean, to ensure that Jamaica has an independent, objective institutional reporting mechanism in relation to human trafficking; government’s substantive efforts to raise public awareness of the scourge of human trafficking; the development of the curriculum on human trafficking; the prosecution of a human trafficking accused; and the identification of more adult trafficking victims.

It also noted that the country was credited for the collaboration between officers of Jamaica Constabulary Force Anti-Trafficking in Persons Unit and their Bahamian counterparts in facilitating a conviction in that jurisdiction.

“These efforts over the past year have built on the foundation laid in prior years, which are also acknowledged in the report,” the statement said.

IMAGE: Classroom

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