The Tribune

THE Ministry of National Security announced the establishment of a National Task Force on Trafficking in Persons to enhance its responsiveness to one of the most quickly growing criminal enterprises in the world.

Trafficking in persons involves a broad range of activities that exploit people for profit, using coercion, force or fraud.

Sexual exploitation and forced labour are the first and second most common forms of trafficking in persons.

The majority of trafficking victims are women and girls, and many of them are children.

It is estimated that upwards of two and a half million people are trafficked annually, many leaving their homes, communities and countries not knowing the suffering and deprivation that will become a fact of life for them.

The ministry said in a statement: "The National Task Force is an operational entity. Its representatives will take the action necessary to deal with trafficking matters from the time that a trafficking victim is identified to the time that the trafficker is prosecuted before the courts and any other matters thereafter.

"The decisive action that is being taken in this area meets the country's responsibilities under the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention on Transnational Crime."

The task force will include personnel from: the Office of the Attorney General and Ministry of Legal Affairs; the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Health, and Labour and Social Development; the Royal Bahamas Police Force; the Royal Bahamas Defence Force; the Department of Immigration, and the Customs Department.

The government is also inviting non-governmental, community and faith-based organisations to nominate representatives to the task force.