US State Department’s Annual Trafficking in Person’s Report |30 July 2015

Seychelles still concerned about unfounded claims

Seychelles has welcomed the US State Department Report on Trafficking in Persons released earlier this week but finds it unfortunate that this latest report has not done away with allegations based on anecdotal rather than hard evidence.

Immediately after the fifteenth Trafficking in Persons Annual Report was released by secretary of state John Kerry at a public event at the State Department in Washington DC on Tuesday, his Seychellois counterpart, Foreign Affairs Minister Joel Morgan, reacted to this new publication. 

Minister Morgan said it is a shared accomplishment for the whole population that Seychelles has maintained its Tier 2 status and that this year’s report also recorded the efforts made by Seychelles to combat what has been termed modern-day slavery.

He was referring to the report’s observation that “the government [of Seychelles] increased prevention measures” and illustrated this with the setting up of the National Coordinating Committee on Trafficking in Persons and the two-month nationwide media campaign to raise awareness about this scourge.

He also welcomed the positive recommendations made by the report that Seychelles uses “the newly adopted anti-trafficking legislation to investigate and prosecute trafficking offences, and convict and punish trafficking offenders”, noting that “this is our intention”.

Minister Morgan also welcomed the call for the conduct of “regular and comprehensive inspection of migrant workers’ worksites and inform migrant workers of their rights”, as well as “special training to government officials on how to identify victims of trafficking and refer them to appropriate services”, noting that the latter is already being done through the launch of the Standard Operating Procedure and Referral Manual for Victims of Trafficking in Persons and a training session next week.

In the same breath, Minister Morgan said it was, however, very unfortunate, that this year’s report carry unsubstantiated and unverified allegations regarding instances of human trafficking in Seychelles.

He noted that Seychelles is a strong proponent of frank dialogues and constructive criticism with and from its international partners on human rights issues, but emphasised that in order for effective changes to be realised, such dialogues must be based on factual assessments rather than unsubstantiated and unverified information which are not reflective of the real situation in the country.