Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1395902
12 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 25 JULY 2021 NEWS NICOLE MEILAK A US annual report on human trafficking says that 7,000 irreg- ular migrants were prevented from reaching Malta last year due to an agreement between the governments of Malta and Libya. A memorandum of under- standing signed in May 2020 between the two governments helped reduce the number of irregular migrants entering Maltese ports. According to the report, this MoU has helped prevent at least 7,000 irregular migrants from arriving to Mal- ta. However, approximately 2,300 irregular migrants successful- ly arrived in Malta in 2020 – a decrease compared to the 3,100 in 2019. Beyond these figures, there are approximately 9,000 refu- gees and 4,000 asylum seekers residing in Malta. The report says that these groups are vul- nerable to trafficking in Malta's informal labour market, includ- ing within the construction, hospitality and domestic work sectors. Fraudulent labour recruitment practices continue to occur, the report says. Traffickers replace the originally signed contract with a less favourable one upon arrival in Malta or force victims to perform a completely differ- ent job than what was agreed upon. Traffickers also go so far as to confiscate the passports of victims upon arrival. The US Trafficking in Persons Report flags rule of law, corrup- tion, slow court proceedings and an understaffed police force as factors hampering proper prosecution. It notes that an investigation initiated in 2004 of a former police officer is still ongoing 17 years later, contrib- uting to impunity for the officer and injustice for the victims. This issue has been flagged multiple times over the years in the same report. The officer al- legedly acted as an accomplice to a convicted sex trafficker through the falsification of visa documents and the procure- ment of a victim. After a court hearing for the former police officer, originally scheduled for April 2019, was deferred, no further action was taken in the case. "If guilty of complicity in traf- ficking, the prolonged court proceedings and lack of a court judgement contributed to im- punity for the officer and in- hibited justice for victims," the report reads. The Criminal Code prescribes penalties of six to 12 years' im- prisonment for sex and labour trafficking. While the US report dubs these penalties to be "suf- ficiently stringent", it notes that Malta does not have specialised anti-trafficking prosecutors or courts. Despite this, the police vice squad initiated 16 trafficking investigations – eight for sex trafficking and eight for labour trafficking. This marked a sig- nificant increase compared to the five investigations initiated in 2019 and 10 in 2018. Prosecutions were initiated against two suspected sex traf- fickers in 2020, while three oth- er traffickers were convicted in 2020. Two of the convicted traffickers are female Chinese nationals sentenced to five and seven years of imprisonment, respectively. The third traffick- er was a Maltese male sentenced to seven years' imprisonment. One of the two female traffick- ers had been charged in 2013 with human trafficking, manag- ing a brothel, living off the earn- ings of prostitution and other related events. The woman, Lin Han, used to run the Honey Girl Beauty Spa in Balzan, which would offer massage services with added sexual favours at an additional premium. The other two traffickers were both convicted of jointly run- ning brothels under the pre- tence of massage parlours. Prosecutions of 16 suspects from prior reporting periods remained ongoing last year, with most suspects having since been released on bail. The Courts re-sentenced two traffickers from an overturned court decision from 2019, sub- sequently upholding the orig- inal conviction but lowering their sentences from 12 to nine years of prison time. The report acknowledges re- cent efforts by government to increase police training on trafficking and sexual exploita- tion. During the 2020 reporting period, government provided anti-trafficking training to of- ficials, which included resourc- es on victim identification and referral. Similar training was provided to border authorities, including civilian border con- trol officers, officials from the Armed Forces of Malta, and Malta Customs officers. Four police officers were sim- ilarly trained in understand- ing child sexual exploitation, and 35 front-line officials were briefed on trafficking indicators and available services for vic- tims. Despite this, police and so- cial workers were only able to identify six trafficking victims in 2020. For comparison, iden- tified victims usually number at around 20-30 people. While the number of victims identified has been falling every year, the low 2020 figure could be down to pandemic-related restrictions making it more dif- ficult for government to identi- fy trafficking victims, as NGOs pointed out in the report. From the victims identified, five were victims of labour traf- ficking, including two victims of domestic servitude and three Maltese child victims of forced criminality. The fifth victim was a combination of both sex and labour trafficking. The foreign trafficking victims were all from the Philippines, and all six victims were female. 7,000 asylum seekers prevented from reaching Malta last year Roughly 2,300 irregular migrants made their way to Malta in 2020 – a decrease compared to 2019