Islands Business - Politics: Pacific vulnerable to human trafficking

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But criminal activity under the radar

Source: Island Business

Dionisia Tabureguci 

As the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) joins other Pacific countries like Palau and Fiji to enact laws that tackle Trafficking In Persons (TIP), recent analysis has revealed the vulnerability of the Pacific islands region in this organised criminal activity.

TIP, more commonly referred to as human trafficking, has been documented in a number of countries in the region and despite this has largely remained under the radar of national priorities.

In March, FSM became the latest in the region to take action, when it announced new laws specifically targeted at human trafficking and related offences along with appropriate penalties for their violation.

FSM’s failure in the past to address reported human trafficking cases saw it listed as a Tier 3 country in the US State Department’s 2011 Trafficking In Persons Report, meaning it did not comply with minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking.

“FSM women have been recruited to the United States and its territories with promises of well-paying jobs, and forced into prostitution upon arrival. Pohnpei State Police received reports that FSM women and children were prostituted to crew members on Asian fishing vessels in Micronesia or in its territorial waters.

“Local Micronesians reportedly facilitate trafficking by transporting girls to the boats for the purpose of prostitution. Foreign and Micronesian women and girls in prostitution and foreign men on fishing vessels in Micronesian waters are particularly vulnerable to trafficking.

“Little data on the scope of human trafficking in FSM is available as the government has not conducted any inquiries, investigations, studies, or surveys on human trafficking,” the US State Department TIP report said.

With the new laws, FSM joins others in the Northern Pacific like Palau, classed under Tier 2 with appropriate laws but with its own share of trafficking issues.

The US 2011 TIP report describes Palau as “a destination country for women from countries in the Asia-Pacific region who are subjected to forced prostitution and people from the Philippines, China, and 
Bangladesh who are subjected to conditions of forced labour”.


While Palau has put in place relevant laws, it came under scrutiny for not investigating or prosecuting any trafficking cases last year, “including neither of two reported trafficking cases brought to their attention, one for the forced labor of a Filipina domestic worker, and one for the forced prostitution of several Filipina women recruited for waitressing.”

FSM, through the new laws, is now able to prosecute both international and domestic human trafficking offences.

In the southern Pacific, Fiji Police is close to arresting and charging individuals involved in trafficking local children for sexual purpose, in what is expected to be the country’s first domestic trafficking case, where victims are trafficked from one point in Fiji to another. 

Fiji graduated from Tier 3 to Tier 2 in the US State Department’s 2011 TIP report after enacting laws related to human trafficking in its Crimes Decree 2009.

It prosecuted its first international trafficking case in November 2010, when an Indian national was arrested in Nadi and found to be trafficking seven Indian nationals with plans to dump them in Fiji.

Incidences of human trafficking in the Pacific region is well documented in the US TIP 2011 report and also in an analysis last November by the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC), which labelled the region as especially “vulnerable”.

“Existing patterns of people movement, weak border and immigration controls, states affected by poor governance, failing rule of law and corruption, the impact of cultural practices entwined with poverty and a limited capacity to respond to natural disasters are identified as key vulnerabilities to trafficking in persons,” said AIC director Adam Tomison, in his foreword to the analysis. 

“Since 2003, an important regional collection of data relevant to trafficking in persons has been undertaken by the Pacific Immigration Directors’ Conference (PIDC).

“Each year, the 23 members of PIDC, including Australia, produce an unpublished annual report based on monthly intelligence reports containing data on people smuggling, human trafficking and illegal migration in the region,” the analysis noted.

“Over a six-year period to 2009, 10 Pacific islands nations (Fiji, Guam, Marshall Islands, New Caledonia, Northern Mariana Islands, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Tonga and Vanuatu) reported that they had reason to believe people were trafficked into their country.”

It was also noted that Pacific islands are being used as temporary transit points. The internationally recognised definition for trafficking in persons is found in the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (the Protocol), which has 143 state parties, including Australia and most Pacific nations.


Under this protocol, the crime of trafficking in persons involves three elements—an action such as recruiting, transporting, transferring, harbouring or receiving persons; a coercive means that ranges from abduction to abuse of power; and a purpose that is exploitative, such as sexual exploitation or forced labour.