Gambia: Government vows to end trafficking in persons
Banjul,Gambia (PANA) - The Gambia government Tuesday called for efforts to end trafficking in persons as dozens of security officers including police, army, immigration, state intelligent services and custom officials started a two-day training workshop aimed at proffering measures to end the practice.
This comes after the country was ranked on tier three by the United States in a 2019 report on trafficking in persons.
According to the report, the country does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and is not making significant efforts to do so.
Trafficking in persons, globally characterised a gross human rights offense, attracts a minimum penalty of life in jail.
Speaking here at the event organized by National Agency Against Trafficking in Persons through the support of UN Agency for migration, Vice President Dr Isatou Touray pledged government’s commitment to giving zero tolerance to trafficking in persons in the country.
“The trafficking in persons will be given greater attention by the government and relevant institution to take it further and address the gross violation of human rights," she added.
“All trafficking in persons cases before the courts have been documented and BSPD is working with NAATIP to get update on all these cases. Once this is completed, the office of the president will help facilitate fast tracking of prosecution of the cases…so that everybody will see themselves as actors in taking their response to ensure that we end sort of this hyenas or dangerous practices that are taking place,” she said.
She called on everyone to participate in fighting trafficking in persons, describing its doers’ as hyenas who had to be hunted for their heinous actions and penalised.
NAATIP’s Executive Director Tulle Jawara-Ceesay described the crime as a global phenomenon, adding that “trafficking in persons components was in the form of forced labour, worst form of child labour, domestic persecution, removal of human organs, early marriage, child sex tourism and smuggling of migrants”.
“Trafficking person is a criminal offense. It is prohibited by law and the offenders must be punished,” she said.
-0- PANA MSS/RA 14Jan2020
