It should be noted that the Trafficking in Persons Report assesses the anti-trafficking efforts of 187 governments, including the United States.
U.S. Chargé d'Affaires, a.i. Keith Gilges is quoted as saying, quote, "The Ministry of Human Development and its private-sector partners did a commendable job in increasing efforts to protect victims and boost prevention through awareness…We continue to call on the Government of Belize to fully implement the anti-trafficking law by vigorously investigating and prosecuting suspected traffickers, including complicit officials, and imposing strong prison sentences on convicted traffickers...." end quote.
That's a matter for law enforcement, and today the Commissioner of Police commented generally on the upgrade.
He was very pleased when he heard the news; Williams says his police department's increased efforts at tackling human trafficking contributed to this upgrade. Williams also discussed what other plans and measures he has to further combat human trafficking in Belize.
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"I am much gratified that it happened under my command of the police department and I can tell you that since I took command, my office have been doing a lot in terms of addressing human trafficking. We have increase the number of personells working in the human trafficking office. We are in direct communication with the human trafficking institute. We are currently working on a new office space for the human trafficking personells to be relocated and the office space will have secured interviewed rooms where persons who are victims of human trafficking will be able to be interviewed in a private room without others hearing the nature of the interviews. We have mounted a number of operations. We have a number of investigations going on and so it shows that with the good work that we have been doing in conjunction with human services and the immigration department, it's not only police, it's a multi-agency approach and I think that all the different agencies involved are doing their part to ensure that we move from that tier 3 to a tier 2 and are not going to celebrate yet. We want to see it goes down even further and so there is still much more that needs to be done. I was in a conversation with the DPP about 2 weeks ago and she is very much on board in terms of ensuring that the cases we have before the courts are prosecuted. Pretty soon we will be announcing a change of command of the A-TIPS unit, because I think that it is time that we look at a young, fresh and vibrant face to head that unit and so I have already given the directive that we will be changing command very shortly of that unit and the reason for that again is because we want to ensure that whatever obligations we have to the human trafficking institute that we live up to those obligations with a view to see how we can minimize or best eradicate the whole issue of human trafficking within Belize."
The US Embassy release concludes by saying, quote, "the recent accomplishments signify that Belize is on the right path to eliminate trafficking in persons in all its forms."
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