US Turns Blind Eye to Concrete Steps Made by Haiti to Combat Trafficking in Persons
The release yesterday of the US State Department's Trafficking in Persons Report, placing Haiti in the category of least compliant countries, came as a complete shock to the Government of Haiti. Over the past two years Haiti's government has made significant progress to enforce the human rights and quality of life for its children, as well as passing legislation in May prohibiting trafficking in persons and banning the provision of the labor code which sanctioned child domestic labor. (See below for more details on efforts made by the Government of Haiti.)
The State Department defines a tier 3 rating as applying to those countries "whose governments do not fully comply with the minimum standards and are not making significant efforts to do so." Haiti's Minister of Education, Marie Carmel Paul Austin, explained that placing Haiti in this category "is unjustified and appears completely at odds with the criteria used to rate other listed countries in their efforts to combat trafficking."
An example of how the report does not consistently apply its own criteria and fails to take into consideration measures taken by the Haitian government, while praising and crediting identical efforts made by other nations, can be found in the area of education. Haiti's Universal Schooling program has increased access to schooling through construction of additional schools in rural and urban areas, subsidizing school uniforms and textbooks by 70%, expanding its hot lunch program, increasing its school bus program, and waging a nationwide literacy program, now in its second year.
These measures to promote greater school enrollment in Haiti were not even cited in the report as preventive measures to combat child domestic service, whereas in the case of 17 other countries ranked tier 1 and tier 2 nations, raising school enrollment is cited as a significant preventive measure.
Many glaring contradictions are evident when comparing Haiti with other countries who were placed in less damning categories. The State Department report completely ignored the important provision of Haiti's anti-trafficking legislation that rescinds the provision of the Labor Code sanctioning child domestic service -- which has long been criticized by the human rights community. Oddly enough, 13 countries with no anti-trafficking legislation whatsoever are ranked tier 2 or tier 1, while Haiti is ranked tier 3.
