Group: Not enough done on human trafficking

RUHAMA, the organisation working with women in prostitution, has criticised the Government for only offering protection to a handful of victims of trafficking, even though almost 50 incidents of the crime have been recorded in only the first nine months of this year.

This is the first year that human trafficking has been classified by the Central Statistics Office as a separate crime and its most recent statistics show there were 15 incidents recorded in the third quarter of 2009. That compared to just four cases in the same period last year. There have been 46 cases of human trafficking so far in 2009.

“We welcome the official recognition of Human Trafficking in the CSO statistics and these figures do not surprise us,” said Gerardine Rowley of Ruhama.