For the past decade, the Latin America and Caribbean region (LAC) has consistently ranked among the regions in the world with the highest rates of human trafficking, whether for purposes of forced labor, sex, or domestic servitude. The region as a whole therefore faces immense challenges in identifying cases of Trafficking in Persons (TIP), prosecuting offenders, and aiding victims.
Despite these existing challenges, the region has also become the world’s epicenter for the COVID-19 pandemic. The economic, social, and welfare conditions that have accompanied COVID-19 have therefore dramatically increased the risks for current and potential TIP victims, leading thousands more people, and especially women and children, to fall victim to the internationally-recognized crime.
According to a Sept. 23 BBC news article, as of Sept. 22 8.8 million cases of COVID-19 and 350,000 deaths had been reported in the LAC region. Brazil and Mexico, with the highest populations in the region, also lead with the highest numbers of reported deaths. In fact, Mexico and Ecuador occupy the number one and two spots for the highest COVID-19 mortality rates in the world, and 50% of the top ten countries with the highest mortality rates are LAC countries.
In a region that was already lacking adequate social welfare nets and sufficient healthcare systems, COVID-19 outbreaks and their subsequent shutdowns have shocked the regional economy in an unprecedented manner.
According to a July 2020 United Nations (UN) Policy Brief, prior to the pandemic, economic development in the LAC region faced severe structural limitations, including high income inequality, high levels of informality, and vulnerability to climate change. The crisis has resulted in the worst recession that the LAC region has seen in over a century, causing a 9.1% contraction in regional Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
The UN brief also states that these conditions could push the number of people living in poverty in the region up by 45 million, to a total of 230 million, and the number of people living in extreme poverty by 28 million, putting many at risk of undernutrition.
As more people are pushed into poverty, many are forced to find additional sources of income to survive. This leaves many more people, and especially women and children, more vulnerable to TIP, which the region struggled to address even before the pandemic.
Since 2000, the U.S. Department of State’s (DOS) Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons has released a yearly report which analyzes the state of TIP around the world by country and region, including the LAC. This report classifies countries into tiers based on their ability to combat human trafficking in accordance with the UN Palermo Protocol to Prevent, Supress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children. These rankings are identified based on the prevalence of trafficking in a country as well as domestic governments’ ability to identify and prosecute cases.
Within the 2020 report’s country narratives, each country is classified among one of four tiers, depending on the extent of governmental efforts to meet the minimum standards of the U.S. Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA).
A country ranked at Tier 1 fully meets the TVPA’s minimum standards. If it ranks in Tier 2, the country does not meet the TVPA’s minimum standards, but is making significant efforts to comply with them. The Tier 2 Watch List signifies that the TVPA’s minimum standards are not fully met, and while the country is making efforts, trafficking is rising. Finally, if a country ranks in Tier 3, its government does not fully meet the minimum standards and is not making significant efforts to do so.
This year, the report’s regional analysis indicates that a majority of the Western Hemisphere, or 19 out of 31 countries (61%), rank within Tier 2 (Yellow). Comparatively, 19% of countries rank within Tier 1 (Green), 10% on the Tier 2 Watch List (Orange), and another 10% in Tier 3 (Red).
Even when the 2020 report analyzed 2019 trends pre COVID-19, the region was already struggling immensely to combat TIP. Adding the conditions of poverty and inadequate social welfare conditions into the mix, early evidence is already showing that the health and economic crises are leading to drastic increases in human trafficking throughout the LAC region.
According to an August 19 America Magazine article, female sex trafficking, in particular, has largely increased in the region as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Poverty, as well as confinement which has often led to amplified domestic violence, has led many young women in the region to leave home and struggle to find other sources of income. Many women are also forced into prostitution by their husbands, as well. Reporting cases of TIP has also become increasingly more difficult, given that police and courts have become much more inaccessible due to social distancing measures.
In addition, the article emphasizes that though traffickers are more restricted in terms of movement across national borders, this can also make it more difficult to identify trafficking victims because they are not made as visible as they are no longer transported. The demand for webcam pornography has also increased by 30 percent with the pandemic, meaning that traffickers are now given virtual avenues for coercion and recruitment. Venezuelan refugees and migrants, in particular, are most vulnerable to forced prostitution and subsequently human trafficking.
A recent UN Office on Drugs and Crime article also addresses a further challenge facing TIP victims: support services for TIP victims across the region have been greatly reduced, and in some cases halted. In Colombia, however, authorities have attempted to move these counselling services online.
Nevertheless, physical spaces for victims to take refuge and psychologically and physically recover are essential in ensuring that victims are not vulnerable to go back into trafficking. This is especially important when legal and criminal justice systems across the region were identified by the mentioned DOS report to be severely lacking in their ability to convict and prosecute traffickers. This means that while many victims may be removed from their situations, their assailants may still be at large continuing their crimes.
Furthermore, labor trafficking and domestic servitude, especially among children, is expected to increase in the region as well. According to the June 15, 2020 ILO and UNICEF report “COVID-19 and Child Labour: A Time of Crisis, a Time to Act”, the global number of people in extreme poverty is projected to rise by at least 20% in 2020, largely as a result of COVID-19. With poverty comes increased rates of child labor, as households use every available means to survive. On a global basis, a one percentage point rise in global poverty levels tends to correlate with a 0.7 percentage point increase in child labor.
These figures are exacerbated in the LAC region, in particular, as social protection nets are less widespread and lack proper implementation. Across the region, locked international remittances and an inability to migrate for work have led families into states of economic desperation. These circumstances promote a transition from formal employment sectors to informal ones, where children may be exploited for their labor. For those who are still able to work, they risk exposing themselves to COVID-19 and bringing the virus home to their families.
All of these conditions leave children vulnerable to many types of TIP, including trafficking for the purposes of forced labor or domestic servitude. According to the mentioned DOS report, in Paraguay, for example, criadazgo is a form of child labor and trafficking in which rural families in desperate economic situations send their children to work for wealthy urban families. As more families suffer to make ends meet, these forms of child trafficking are expected to become even more prominent.
Exact figures on the extent of the impacts that the virus will have on TIP have not yet been released, and only anecdotal evidence exists from NGOs to show that these trends indeed exist. In the meantime, it is clear that COVID-19 has put possible and current TIP victims in the LAC region at great risk.
Now more than ever, it will therefore be the responsibility of domestic governments to increase their mechanisms for identification of TIP victims, enforcement of laws against TIP, and prosecution and sentencing of traffickers. It will also be up to international organizations and NGOs to put pressure on these governments, as well as assist them in building their capacities to combat TIP in the age of COVID-19. While much of this work is already taking place, these institutions have a long road ahead of them in not only reversing the effects of COVID-19 on TIP, but working to eliminate TIP in its entirety throughout the region.