As a popular tourist destination, Barbados also serves as a transit route for traffickers engaged in transnational organized crime—fomenting an environment ideal for trafficking in persons (TIP). For two consecutive years, Barbados was classified as “Tier 2” in the US Department of State’s TIP Report. The country fell under this classification because of its insufficient efforts to prosecute cases, protect victims, and proactively prevent TIP.
Launched in October 2020, the American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative’s (ABA ROLI) six-month rapid response Combating Human Trafficking in Barbados program aimed to raise awareness and build the capacity of key stakeholders in-country to address TIP. The project’s objectives included strengthening judicial capacity to combat human trafficking and providing technical assistance to the government of Barbados on anti-trafficking efforts. To address this, the program developed country-specific and situational assessments, educational sessions, and manuals for justice sector actors. By the end of the program in April 2021, ABA ROLI trained over 50 immigration and customs officers, judges, and prosecutors; and drafted over 200 pages of TIP content to provide to participants and the Government of Barbados. In 2020, the ABA ROLI Barbados team completed an assessment on the statutes of Trafficking in Persons on the island.