U.S. Dep't of State, 2024 Trafficking in Persons Report: Jamaica

JAMAICA (Tier 2) The Government of Jamaica does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking but is making significant efforts to do so. The government demonstrated overall increasing efforts compared with the previous reporting period; therefore Jamaica remained on Tier 2. These efforts included identifying and assisting significantly more victims, including more adult, male, and foreign victims. The government initiated more investigations and prosecutions of suspected traffickers and made progress in institutionalizing training for criminal justice officials and victim service providers.

It increased funding dedicated to victim services and opened six additional child-friendly spaces for interviewing and providing immediate assistance to child victims. However, the government did not meet the minimum standards in several key areas. Authorities prosecuted offenders under other laws with lesser penalties, and offenders received insufficient punishments that did not involve significant terms of imprisonment. The government decreased funding to the National Task Force Against Trafficking in Persons (NATFATIP) and it did not approve a draft national policy to combat trafficking, drafted during the previous reporting period.

The government failed to endorse a prevalence research study completed during the reporting period, undermining efforts to build knowledge and awareness of the nature and scope of trafficking in Jamaica. PRIORITIZED RECOMMENDATIONS: Increase efforts to investigate and prosecute traffickers, including officials who are complicit in human trafficking and foreign nationals or Jamaicans who exploit child sex trafficking victims, and seek adequate penalties for convicted traffickers, which should involve significant prison terms. * Fully implement the screening tools and NRM to increase proactive identification and referral of potential trafficking victims among vulnerable groups – to include Cuban government-affiliated workers in Jamaica and children apprehended for gang-related activity – and provide consistent training for officials on implementing these tools. * Increase efforts to provide more victims, whether identified in Jamaica or repatriated from abroad, with comprehensive, trauma-informed, services, including reintegration support and for the full length of any legal proceedings. * Train criminal justice officials on provisions in the anti-trafficking law directing courts to order restitution to victims and ensure victims consistently receive court-ordered payments. * Increase funding and human resources to ministries, departments, and agencies responsible for trafficking victim protection services, and strengthen capacity-building and risk assessment procedures within the child protection system. * Allow adult victims greater independence to make informed choices about their own security needs and do not impose restriction of movement on adult victims while in the government’s care. * Amend the anti-trafficking law to prescribe penalties for sex trafficking that are commensurate with penalties for other grave crimes by increasing the available maximum imprisonment term. * Implement legal or policy changes to enhance law enforcement officials’ ability to classify children subjected to forced criminality as trafficking victims. * Increase resources to the Office of the National Rapporteur on Trafficking in Persons (ONRTIP) to provide independent monitoring and oversight of the government’s anti-trafficking response. * Strengthen systems to collect, share, and analyze integrated case data on suspected and confirmed trafficking cases among relevant stakeholders, and increase the use of data and data-driven research to inform policy and programs. * Increase collaboration, including funding, with civil society organizations to support protection and prevention efforts at the community level.

PROSECUTION

The government maintained efforts to investigate and prosecute suspected trafficking crimes, but did not impose adequate penalties on convicted offenders. The government criminalized sex trafficking and labor trafficking through its Trafficking in Persons (Prevention, Suppression, and Punishment) Act. The law prescribes penalties of up to 20 years’ imprisonment for offenses involving an adult victim and up to 30 years’ imprisonment for those involving a child victim. These penalties were sufficiently stringent; however, with respect to sex trafficking, by prescribing a lower maximum imprisonment term, these penalties were not commensurate with those for other grave crimes, such as rape.

ONRTIP has recommended legal amendments to define forced criminal activity more clearly as a form of trafficking to strengthen the tools available to criminal justice officials seeking justice for victims of these crimes. Officials opened investigations into 61 cases, 48 involving sex trafficking, six involving labor trafficking, and seven involving unspecified forms of trafficking; this was comparable to the previous reporting period, when officials opened investigation into 60 cases (55 involving sex trafficking and five involving labor trafficking). Authorities initiated prosecutions of eight suspects (six charged with sex trafficking and two charged with labor trafficking). This was similar to the previous reporting period, when authorities initiated prosecutions of seven suspects (five charged with sex trafficking and two with labor trafficking).

Authorities continued prosecution of seven defendants charged with sex trafficking crimes in previous reporting periods. Authorities convicted three sex traffickers of offenses with lesser penalties under the Sexual Offences Act. Authorities dismissed charges against four suspects charged under the anti-trafficking law and did not convict any traffickers under the trafficking law. One suspect initially pled guilty to trafficking charges but retracted the plea prior to sentencing; the trial was scheduled to begin after the close of the reporting period.

Courts sentenced one convicted offender to serve six months in prison or pay a fine of 200,000 Jamaican dollars ($1,300), and two convicted offenders each to serve six months in prison or pay a fine of 100,000 Jamaican dollars ($650). These penalties were inadequate compared to the seriousness of the offenses and insufficient to deter other offenders. In comparison, during the previous reporting period, courts convicted one sex trafficker and two labor traffickers under the anti-trafficking law, with sentences ranging from either three years in prison or a fine of one million Jamaican dollars ($6,490) to fifteen years’ imprisonment. In the previous reporting period, courts also convicted two individuals for sex crimes against a child and child protection violations in a child sex trafficking case; courts sentenced one of these individuals to 17 years and three months in prison during this reporting period.

The slow pace at which cases moved through the courts hampered efforts to hold traffickers criminally accountable and deterred victims from serving as witnesses. The government did not report any investigations, prosecutions, or convictions of government employees complicit in trafficking crimes. However, endemic corruption and official complicity, including within law enforcement, remained significant concerns, inhibiting law enforcement action during the year. The Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) maintained a specialized police unit with island-wide jurisdiction to investigate human trafficking and vice crimes, and it added five additional officers to this unit.

The JCF’s Centre for the Investigation of Sexual Offences and Child Abuse (CISOCA) units specialized in cases involving child victims and/or sexual abuse, and officials in these units also identified trafficking victims. Jamaica’s Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions maintained a team of prosecutors specialized in human rights, intellectual property, and sexual offenses, including trafficking. Anti-trafficking police conducted 30 surveillance operations of locations in 10 of Jamaica’s 14 parishes believed to be high-risk for trafficking, and identified two victims from these operations. Some individual judges had specialized trafficking experience, but there was no formal mechanism to assign trafficking cases to these judges.

The JCF included an anti-trafficking training module in its general police course attended by 626 investigators, and it provided a specialized training to more than 400 police, military, and gender affairs officials. The government’s justice sector training institute hosted an online, interactive, and on-demand training course for criminal justice professionals to strengthen trauma-informed and victim-centered procedures in child trafficking cases, the first cohort including 120 justice sector officials and 500 Justices of the Peace, completed the course. This course strengthened the government’s training efforts for law enforcement which were otherwise largely ad-hoc. Jamaican authorities cooperated with foreign counterparts in Argentina, the Bahamas, Colombia, Saint Lucia, and Venezuela to investigate suspected trafficking cases involving Jamaican nationals exploited overseas and foreign victims exploited in Jamaica.

PROTECTION

The government increased efforts to protect victims. The government identified and assisted 29 likely trafficking victims, a significant increase from 11 likely victims identified and assisted during the previous reporting period. Identified victims included 15 victims exploited in sex trafficking (10 girls and five women) and 14 victims exploited in labor trafficking (four girls, seven boys, one woman, and two men). One labor trafficking victim was a Jamaican woman exploited in Argentina and identified by Jamaican officials upon returning, and four sex trafficking victims and two labor trafficking victims were foreign nationals from Venezuela (three individuals), Saint Lucia (two individuals), and Colombia (one individual).

This represented an increase in adult victims, male victims, and foreign victims identified; during the previous reporting period, authorities identified one male victim and no adult or foreign victims. The government reported referring all 29 victims to services and providing care, including accommodation, counseling and psycho-social support, and medical care. The government reported assisting five child victims in Child Protection and Family Services Agency (CPFSA) residential facilities in 2023, compared with seven victims (five new referrals and two referred in previous years) cared for in these facilities in 2022. Three children left shelters daily to attend school and the government provided educational services inside shelters to two children.

CPFSA provided mental health support to the child victims in its care. The Ministry of Justice’s Victim Services Division (VSD) provided more than 40 counseling sessions for victims. The government provided hotel accommodation, food, essentials, and medical care for the six foreign victims prior to repatriation to their home countries. The government reported spending 9.6 million Jamaican dollars ($62,340) on victim protection services, a notable increase from 5.34 million Jamaican dollars ($34,680) dedicated to victim protection services in the previous reporting period.

Front-line officials continued making progress in efforts to proactively identify victims and refer possible victims for care. Officials implemented a victim identification and referral mechanism to proactively screen for possible child trafficking victims among the populations they served and refer possible child victims to specialized authorities and service providers. Relevant ministries, agencies, and departments including CPFSA, VSD, the Ministry of Labor and Social Security (MLSS), the JCF’s anti-trafficking unit, and the Passport, Immigration, and Citizenship Agency (PICA) utilized ministry-specific screening tools to guide officials in assessing behavioral, situational, health, and other factors to identify potential child trafficking victims among vulnerable groups; victim intake and case management forms; and an NRM to standardize procedures for victim referral and management of care across government. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade had a handbook on human trafficking for diplomatic and consular staff, including criteria for identifying victims, but did not identify any Jamaican victims exploited abroad.

The Ministry of Education and Youth did not formally approve an anti-trafficking manual, developed during the previous reporting period, designed to guide school officials, students, and families on addressing child trafficking issues within the education system. PICA established a team to respond to human trafficking, and immigration officials identified and referred to police seven possible trafficking cases for investigation. Despite progress, officials did not effectively screen all vulnerable children, and authorities classified some child sex trafficking victims as victims of other crimes. Officials made fewer efforts to screen for indicators of trafficking among vulnerable adults.

JCF’s anti-trafficking unit reported screening for trafficking when apprehending vulnerable individuals, including migrants and persons engaged in commercial sex. Non-specialized police did not typically screen for trafficking indicators among vulnerable groups, including children apprehended for gang-related activity. Authorities did not acknowledge Cuban government-affiliated workers as being at high risk for forced labor or screen these workers for indicators of trafficking, despite ongoing concerns by international experts that the Government of Cuba may have compelled some of them to work. The NRM continued a requirement that all reports of suspected trafficking go through the JCF’s anti-trafficking and vice crimes unit for formal identification and investigation, but it established a stronger role for service providers in conducting needs assessments and providing case management to child victims.

While police formally identified only 15 of the 29 possible trafficking victims, the government referred all 29 likely victims to service providers. JCF, NATFATIP, and in the case of child victims, CPFSA, collaborated to arrange short- or long-term accommodation and other services to victims. CPFSA developed a care plan for child victims placed in state care, tailored to individual needs and typically including counseling and psycho-social support, educational support, and medical care. VSD also provided these services to some victims, including adults.

Local experts reported the government likely provided shelter or other services to some child trafficking victims it did not formally identify and classified as victims of other crimes. NATFATIP operated a shelter exclusively for trafficking victims, which could accommodate 12 female victims, and arranged private lodging for some victims, including men and foreign victims prior to repatriation. CPFSA placed child victims in residential facilities that were not exclusive to trafficking victims. The government reported adult victims had the option of residing in the government’s specialized shelter or in private accommodation; in practice, however, authorities limited some victims’ options based on an independent police assessment of the victim’s security risks.

Authorities placed victims deemed to be at high risk in private accommodations, guarded by police, and restricted their ability to move freely. The government closely monitored, and sometimes restricted, victims’ movement while residing in the specialized shelter. These high security measures may have re-traumatized some victims. The government acquired a property it plans to develop into a shelter for male trafficking victims, but it did not allocate the funds to repair and refurbish it during the year.

The government reported holding a two-day training and capacity building session for 30 CPFSA social workers on identifying, referring, and providing care for child trafficking survivors throughout different stages of the agency’s interactions with victims. CPFSA also facilitated continuing education training for its psychologists on the impacts of trauma and therapeutic interventions for child survivors. However, the government did not report making reforms in response to a January 2023 Office of the Children’s Advocate (OCA) report that exposed serious failures in Jamaica’s child protection system and called for extensive capacity building and improved risk assessment to protect children from experiencing abuse while in CPFSA care. The government provided limited long-term services to support victims’ reintegration, prevent re-exploitation, or sustain protection throughout the duration of lengthy court cases, though the NRM included the need for reintegration support.

The government continued supporting a survivor who has been a resident of the NATFATIP shelter since 2013, but authorities had yet to support her safe transition to long-term independence outside the shelter. Foreign victims were able to access the same services as Jamaican victims. The government did not have a formal policy to provide residency to foreign victims who faced hardship or retribution upon return to their home countries, but authorities could provide this assistance to victims on a case-by-case basis. No victims received residency.

The government repatriated one victim to Colombia, two victims to Saint Lucia, and three victims to Venezuela. The government opened six new child-friendly spaces for interviewing and assisting child victims, including one in Mandeville (operated by VSD), one in Montego Bay (operated by VSD), one in Saint Catherine Parish (operated by the Ministry of Health and Wellness), and three in Kingston (two operated by CPFSA and one operated by the JCF’s anti-trafficking police unit). These multidisciplinary spaces, developed with donor funding and technical assistance from an NGO, provided child victims and witnesses with a safe and private location to access immediate law enforcement and medical attention, as well as referral to additional services in a trauma-informed setting. The government continued operating four child-friendly spaces, in Trelawny Parish (operated by CISOCA), Kingston and Montego Bay (operated by the Independent Commission of Investigations, an agency responsible for investigative oversight of security forces), and Port Antonio (operated by VSD).

The government reported a CPFSA social worker typically accompanied children to interviews with law enforcement. With technical assistance from an NGO, NATFATIP developed and began implementing a guide for interviewing child victims and witnesses using a child-friendly, trauma-informed approach. VSD provided 14 court orientation sessions for victims participating in the judicial process, including children, and officers from VSD or CPFSA accompanied victims testifying in court. The government provided assistance to victims participating in court cases, including ten victims involved in new prosecutions; these services included counseling, transportation, meals, and enhanced security when safety risks were assessed.

The government made efforts to ensure continuity once a case was assigned to a prosecutor, to foster trust and to minimize the need for repeated victim interviews. In certain instances, justice officials permitted victims to provide testimony through video or written statements, and some child-friendly spaces were equipped with recording technology to streamline child victims’ interviews. The NRM provided guidelines to avoid re-traumatizing child victims. However, the government did not allocate adequate human or financial resources to provide victims with sustained support during legal processes, and authorities did not always employ victim-centered procedures.

Years-long court cases, re-traumatization during the criminal justice process, and fear of reprisal further disincentivized victims from reporting cases or participating in trials. Jamaica’s anti-trafficking law directed the court to order restitution to victims. However, courts did not order any traffickers to pay victims restitution and the government did not effectively enforce restitution orders. Jamaican law protected trafficking victims from prosecution for immigration or commercial sex offenses committed solely as a direct result of being trafficked, but it did not provide immunity for other unlawful acts committed as a direct result of being trafficked.

Due to inadequate screening for indicators of potential trafficking among vulnerable populations, including children apprehended for gang-related criminal activity, authorities may have penalized some victims for unlawful acts committed as a direct result of being trafficked.

PREVENTION

The government maintained efforts to prevent trafficking but decreased overall funding to anti-trafficking efforts. NATFATIP, which was chaired by the Ministry of National Security and included representatives from relevant government institutions and select NGOs, met quarterly to coordinate, implement, and evaluate national anti-trafficking efforts. The government reported its 2018-2021 national action plan (NAP), though expired, continued to guide NATFATIP’s activities. The government did not approve a draft national policy to combat trafficking, drafted and submitted for cabinet approval during the previous reporting period, to replace the NAP.

The government allocated 11 million Jamaican dollars ($71,430) to NATFATIP, a significant decrease from approximately 19 million Jamaican dollars ($123,380) allocated to NATFATIP in the previous reporting period. Ministries also funded anti-trafficking activities from their individual budgets. With support from an international donor, the government conducted awareness-raising activities with students and teachers from 10 public schools. NATFATIP, JCF, MLSS and other agencies held numerous educational sessions for government officials, community organizations, and members of the public.

Public officials utilized television, radio, newspaper, billboards, brochures, SMS, social media, and other online platforms to disseminate messages on the risks of human trafficking and encouraging the public to identify and report suspected cases, with some materials available in English and Patois. In previous years, the government collaborated with foreign donors and an international organization to develop research measuring the prevalence of child trafficking in Jamaica; however, the government failed to endorse the final product or disseminate the research among Jamaican stakeholders, severely undermining its intended impact for educating the public and informing anti-trafficking policy and programming. ONRTIP maintained an online resource library providing the public with access to a collection of research and other materials on trafficking. NATFATIP maintained a database to collect information on traffickers and victims provided in monthly reports from its member institutions, and ONRTIP provided independent oversight of the government’s anti-trafficking efforts.

ONRTIP has reported shortcomings in data entry and insufficient access to the data across government sectors. In the previous reporting period, a number of key government institutions signed an MOU on data sharing to allow more timely and comprehensive access to data on anti-trafficking efforts, but officials reported data collection remained weak. ONRTIP provided independent oversight and reporting on the government’s anti-trafficking response and, together with OCA, worked to protect the rights of trafficking victims and vulnerable children. Experts reported ONRTIP needed greater resources to fulfill its role.

The government operated three hotlines that accepted reports of human trafficking. CPFSA operated a three-digit hotline for reporting cases of child abuse, including human trafficking, which operated 24 hours per day, seven days per week, including public holidays; the Office of the Children’s Advocate operated a 24 hours per day, seven days per week phone line and messaging platform to provide immediate psycho-social support directly to children; and police operated a 24-hour emergency line. The government reported identifying two suspected child victims and initiating two investigations as a result of calls to the hotlines, a decrease from identifying seven child victims and initiating 36 investigations from calls to the CPFSA hotline during the previous reporting period. The Employment Agencies Regulation Act set guidelines for the licensing of employment agencies and prohibited charging some workers recruitment fees, but this only applied to participants in overseas programs in which host governments had prohibited such fees.

Separate laws prohibited fraudulent recruitment practices such as contract switching. Ministry of Labor and Social Security (MLSS) officials reported coordinating with police on investigations and prosecutions of private employment agencies suspected of operating illegally, but the government did not provide additional details. MLSS conducted pre-departure orientation sessions for migrant workers in the hospitality and agricultural sectors in the United States and Canada, including information on types of human trafficking, identifying and avoiding potential risks, and whom to contact for assistance. The government maintained liaison officers in Canada, under the auspices of a bilateral MOU, to protect the interests of overseas workers.

These officials were ostensibly available to workers 24 hours a day and seven days a week, but the government employed only 13 liaison officers to support approximately 10,000 Jamaican workers across 10 Canadian provinces and many workers reported they failed to provide adequate support. The government operated a liaison service in the United States, but only certain categories of Jamaican temporary workers were eligible for this assistance, leaving more than half of all Jamaican temporary workers in the United States ineligible. In April 2023, MLSS published a report from a fact-finding team sent to Canada to investigate allegations of abusive working conditions for Jamaican temporary workers on Canadian farms. The report made several recommendations to strengthen the liaison service, including increasing the overall number of officers and recruiting trained social workers for these roles, digitize the service’s communication capabilities, and increase the frequency of both virtual in-person outreach to Jamaican workers.

Authorities sentenced a United States national, convicted during the previous reporting period on charges stemming from a child sex trafficking case, to 17 years and three months’ imprisonment for sex crimes committed against a child. The government participated in a program with authorities in the United States to limit the entry into Jamaica of sex offenders convicted in the United States. The government reported denying entry into Jamaica to five sex offenders from the United States during the year. The government held training sessions for tourism industry stakeholders on preventing human trafficking and identifying, assisting, and referring victims exploited within the tourism sector.

TRAFFICKING PROFILE: As reported over the past five years, human traffickers exploit domestic and foreign victims in Jamaica, and traffickers exploit victims from Jamaica abroad. Sex trafficking of Jamaican and foreign women and children, including boys, reportedly occurs on streets and in nightclubs, bars, massage parlors, hotels, and private homes, including in resort towns. Traffickers increasingly use social media platforms and false job offers to recruit victims; local experts report the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated this trend, as traffickers adapted by seeking methods to recruit individuals, especially children, in their own homes. Communities vulnerable to sex trafficking and forced labor include children and young adults from poor households, child victims of sexual abuse, adults engaged in commercial sex, persons experiencing homelessness, LGBTQI+ youth, residents of Jamaica’s poverty-stricken areas effectively controlled by criminal “dons,” migrant workers, and workers in the informal sector, particularly on family farms and in markets and shops.

Traffickers subject children and adults to forced begging and women and children to domestic servitude. Girls, sometimes coerced by family members, are subjected to sex trafficking by men who provide monetary or material payment to the girls or their families in exchange for sex acts; local observers report this form of child sex trafficking may be widespread in some communities. Local NGOs report parents more frequently facilitate their children’s exploitation since the onset of the pandemic, making home life increasingly unsafe for children, especially girls from lower socio-economic groups. Many LGBTQI+ children face persecution and bullying in their homes or communities; those who flee these abusive conditions are highly vulnerable to sex trafficking.

Children from rural Jamaica, and possibly from other Caribbean countries, who are sent to live with more affluent family members or acquaintances sometimes become exploited in forced labor in private households, markets, or shops. Young people in state care are highly vulnerable to trafficking, particularly as they age out of the welfare system. The government reported previously incarcerated individuals are at heightened risk of trafficking. Gang members exploit children – typically boys from disadvantaged backgrounds – in forced begging or in forced criminal activity including as lookouts, armed gunmen, or couriers of weapons and drugs; there were reports criminal organizations exploited children in forced criminal activity in lotto-scamming.

Local observers identified increased risks of forced criminal activity for boys during the pandemic. Many children are reported missing in Jamaica; traffickers exploit some of these children in forced labor or sex trafficking. A prevalence research study completed in 2023 found an estimated 6.3 percent of children between the ages of 12 and 17 have experienced or are currently experiencing conditions indicative of human trafficking. Research findings indicate forced child labor, including domestic servitude, is the most prevalent form of child trafficking in Jamaica and that child sex trafficking more frequently occurs through private transactions than in commercial establishments.

Researchers found boys reported experiencing exploitation in forced child labor outside the home and exploitation in forced criminal activity by gangs at higher rates, girls reported higher rates of exploitation in sex trafficking, and girls are boys reported similar rates of exploitation in domestic servitude. The research found similar rates of child trafficking in households both above and below the poverty line. Traffickers have exploited Jamaican individuals in sex trafficking and forced labor abroad, including in other Caribbean countries, Latin America, Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. NGOs and government officials report poverty-stricken families, or parents of children with behavioral problems, often send children to live with relatives or acquaintances overseas in order to access additional opportunities or to avoid the juvenile justice system; some of these children become victims of sex trafficking or forced labor, including domestic servitude.

Jamaican temporary farmworkers in Canada reported some employers subjected them to abusive conditions indicative of trafficking, including insufficient food; verbal and physical intimidation and threats; and inadequate, surveillance-filled living quarters. A Jamaican government fact-finding report published in 2023 found some Jamaican farmworkers in Canada were forced to sign new contracts upon arrival in Canada and some workers reported being forced to work overtime and during illness. Jamaican women have reported being charged recruitment fees, being misled about their terms of employment, and compelled through threats to continue working in the U.S. hospitality industry. Traffickers exploit foreign nationals, including men, women, and children from South and East Asia, Latin America, and other Caribbean countries, in forced labor and sex trafficking in Jamaica.

There have been reports of forced labor of foreign nationals aboard foreign-flagged fishing vessels operating in Jamaican waters. Some Cuban government-affiliated workers in Jamaica, including medical and teaching professionals the government contracted, may have been forced to work by the Cuban government. Children are subjected to sex trafficking in Jamaica’s resort areas frequented by tourists, sometimes with their parents’ involvement. Endemic corruption and complicity, including within law enforcement, remain significant obstacles to anti-trafficking law enforcement efforts.

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