By Bampia James Bundu
United States Ambassador, Michael Owen, yesterday told journalists in Freetown that a recent scientific estimate puts at 27 million the number of men, women and children who are victims of trafficking, compared to 40,000 estimated by governments around the world annually.
At a joint press conference with the minister of social welfare to launch this year’s report on Trafficking In Persons (TIP) titled “Victim Identification: The first step in stopping modern slavery”, he said only a mere fraction of people said to be victims of modern day slavery, was recognized by governments.
Ambassador Owen said that in the 13th annual trafficking in persons report released earlier this month by the Department of State “Sierra Leone was upgraded, moving from tier 2 Watch List to Tier 2 based on improved government efforts to combat human trafficking”.
He said the country’s recent classification meant that the country was making significant efforts to comply with international standards, but had not quite met them yet.
“The report noted increased anti-trafficking law enforcement efforts by the government, including passing into law the Sexual Offences Act, an increase in investigations and protections and the initiation of a national awareness campaign,” the ambassador said.
He however called on government to do more in ensuring more traffickers were brought to justice to prevent it from happening.
Minister of social welfare, Moijue Kaikai, expressed profound gratitude to the American Embassy, saying the new ranking was as a result of the “focused efforts” by the national taskforce on human trafficking being spearheaded by his ministry.
He revealed that the taskforce comprised representatives from line ministries, non-governmental organizations, international organizations, stakeholders, diplomatic missions, among them the US embassy.
The minister commended the taskforce and encouraged them to remain committed to eradicating modern day slavery.
He assured of his ministry’s support to installing a TIP database at the taskforce secretariat, setting up of a trafficking hotline to help identify and refer victims, ratifying the protocol to prevent, suppress and punish traffickers.
