The 60 day deadly by the U.S. to see Belize actively making efforts at complying to their human trafficking protocols have elapsed. Now Belize has presented its report on the steps taken on the anti trafficking plan. Today chairperson of the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Committee Anita Zetina explained what's in the report and how Belize is to fair off.
Anita Zetina,
"The report outlines the work of the committee of the government over the last sixty days as well as other initiatives that we have been involved with outside of the sixty days towards combating human trafficking in Belize. As you know, the U.S. had proposed seven steps, which took into consideration the three Ps which talk about prevention, prosecution and protection. And so the work of the committee has focused on those three areas.
More public awareness has resulted in the need for more public awareness we find. Training for the entities, government and non-government entities who respond to the issue of trafficking, is also key in the work that we have been doing and will continue to do. And along that, there is the need to conduct operations to identify possible, potentional victims in the process. That is a very important part of the work and again we will focus, and we will continue to focus, on operations countrywide.
We're stepped up our efforts during the sixty days because we were placed on tier 3, based on the fact that we were not complying with the minimum standards of US legislation. However we feel that we must continue. It is not because the sixty day is over that our work is completed. We will continue to sustain our effort in those three areas that I mentioned earlier."
Belize will not know if the work done in the 60 day period was effective until September when the U.S. will review Belize's tier three classification.
