Africa-Press – Lesotho. The Minister of Home Affairs Hon. Motlalentoa Letsosa has appealed to the public to join forces with the government to fight the human trafficking crime in the country.
This he said on Friday last week in the wake of the results by the United States (US) government’s reports on Lesotho’s commitment towards fighting this crime.
The US government has provisionally cleared Lesotho from the list of the countries which will forfeit certain benefits from that government on account of their failure to fight
human trafficking crime. This is owing to what the US had said the government is ‘making significant efforts’ to address the human trafficking crime. In its report on
trafficking in persons (TIP) released on Thursday, the US has upgraded Lesotho from Tier 3 to Tier 2 watch list for what they said had shown efforts in
arresting TIP crime. The Tier 3 is the lowest ranking of the countries which have failed to “fully comply with the minimum standards and are not making significant efforts to do so” and risk
forfeiting certain aid from the US government and the Tier 2 watch list in which “governments do not fully meet the TVPA’s [Trafficking Victims Protection
Act] minimum standards but are making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with those standards”. Under the Tier 2 watch list, the US takes into account: “the estimated number of victims of
severe forms of trafficking is very significant or is significantly increasing and the country is not taking proportional concrete actions; there is a failure to provide evidence of
increasing efforts to combat severe forms of trafficking in persons from the previous year, including increased investigations, prosecution, and convictions
of trafficking crimes, increased assistance to victims, and decreasing evidence of complicity in severe forms of trafficking by government officials. ”
Meanwhile Tier 2 status implies that the country had not fully met the TVPS’s requirements but is making a “significant effort” to comply with those stipulated standards
under this act. Tier 1 status is given to the country that “fully meets” the TVPS’s standards and “meets the minimum standards in the elimination of trafficking”.
The Minister said they want to move to ‘pure’ Tier 2 then Tier 1. “We have made sure that this is not the government thing; it is a Basotho thing. We all have to
fight this scourge,” he said. Letsosa said fighting human trafficking requires collective efforts adding that they have also teamed up with the non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
He further charged: “We will win this fight. ” One of the challenges the report highlighted is that Lesotho had for 10 consecutive years not provided the funding for the victims of trafficking trust fund, to which the
Minister said there is no problem in allocating such funds and promised that they will address that anomaly. In this year’s recently published report, the US has remarked that: “The Government of Lesotho
does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking but is making significant efforts to do so. The government had made key achievements during the reporting period, considering the impact of the COVID-19
pandemic on its anti-trafficking capacity; therefore Lesotho was upgraded to Tier 2 Watch List. “These achievements included convicting the first trafficker in four years and sentencing him to
imprisonment; enacting a new anti-trafficking law that closed key legislative gaps, including criminalizing all forms of sex trafficking and prescribing
penalties commensurate with the penalties for other serious crimes; commencing criminal investigations into multiple government officials allegedly complicit
in human trafficking offenses; devoting, for the first time, modest funding for the victim protection; and passing a 2021-2026 anti-trafficking national action
plan. Despite these achievements, the government did not meet several key minimum standards. Law enforcement efforts remained insufficient compared to
the problem, in part due to the lack of training and experience necessary to conduct complex multi-jurisdictional investigations. ” The report further
says that the government had failed to investigate the “credible” allegations of its citizens who are trafficked to South Africa (SA) and that it has also
not investigated the alleged incidents of abuse of victims by both Lesotho and SA. The US recommended that “trafficking-specific” be conducted for the police, judges, prosecutors
and social service personnel. “Increase oversight of labor recruitment agencies licenced in Lesotho to mitigate fraudulent recruitment for mining workers in South Africa.
” Letsosa also showed that they had capacitated the immigration officers to identify the victims of
the trafficking at the ports of entry adding that they have also enhanced the screening efforts in order to bust the alleged perpetrators and rescue the
victims. He also stated that they had removed the option of fine in the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act arguing that the traffickers have money and can be able to pay such a fine.
Those fines ranged from M1 million if found guilty by court for trafficking an adult and M2 million for trafficking a minor, and these penalties attract a sentences
from 25 years imprisonment. The report further recommends that the government fund the police trafficking and smuggling unit and be decentralised in all districts for “effective responsiveness” to all trafficking
related cases. In 2020 TIP report, the US had downgraded Lesotho to Tier 3 over what they said the latter “does not meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and is not
making significant efforts to do so; therefore was downgraded to Tier 3”. “Despite serious concerns of official complicity in trafficking crimes, which appeared
to restrict all law enforcement actions during the reporting period, the government did not report any investigations, prosecutions or convictions of government officials for such acts.
The government identified fewer victims and did not provide protective services to victims or financial support to an NGO that did. “The government did
not address issues in its legal framework for human trafficking, which did not criminalize all forms of sex trafficking and included penalties that were not
sufficiently stringent to deter the crime,” reads the TIP 2020 report. The Minister also reported that last year, they had extradited about 31 alleged traffickers at
the airport and in the land border posts. Those he said were from the following countries: Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Kenya, Ethiopia, Mauritius, Cameroon, India, Argentina and Sri Lanka.
Earlier this year, the country received in donation the rehabilitation shelter that houses the victims of human trafficking from the International Organisation for Migration
(IOM).
“Trafficking in persons, also known as modern day slavery or human trafficking, includes both
forced labor and sex trafficking. Human trafficking represents a threat to international peace and security. It undermines the rule of law, robs millions
of their dignity and freedom, enriches transnational criminals and terrorists, and threatens public safety and national security everywhere,” this is according to the US government.
The National Assembly had on December 11 last year, passed the Anti-Trafficking in Persons (Amendment) Bill, 2020 which is aimed at fighting this crime.
According to the United Nations (UN), human trafficking is “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring, or receipt of persons by improper means (such as force,
abduction, fraud, or coercion) for an improper purpose including forced labour or sexual exploitation”. The UN Women notes that human trafficking “operates in darkness”.
This organisation further states that “wherever there is poverty, conflict and gender inequality, women’s and girls’ lives are at-risk for exploitation.
Human trafficking is a heinous crime that shatters lives, families and dreams”. In addressing this crime, the US government has adopted the three Ps, which means prevent
trafficking, protect trafficking victims and prosecute and punish traffickers. Last year December saw the repatriation of the Pakistani nationals at the Moshoeshoe I
International Airport suspected to be perpetrators of the human trafficking. Having escaped the blacklist, Lesotho stands better chances for the reselection of the multi-billion compact of the Millennium Challenge Corporation and the
Africa Growth Opportunity Act (AGOA) which is said to be employing over 40 000 Basotho through the textiles industry according to the US Trafficking in
Persons (TIP) report. It will also not forfeit the funding from the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) which is the boost against the HIV/AIDS fight among others.
“The government increased anti-trafficking prevention efforts. The multi-sectoral committee (MSC), led by the Ministry of Home Affairs and charged with leading anti-trafficking legal and policy efforts, met four times during the year,” the 2021 TIP report says.
