President Luis Abinader announced that a law against human trafficking and migrant smuggling will be submitted to the National Congress in the coming days.
“Laws that had not been approved for decades, such as the domain extinction, the law that prohibits child marriage, the customs law or the border development law, have been approved. In the next few days we will submit to Congress the law against trafficking and smuggling of migrants. And it is very important to carry out, as soon as possible, the law on land use and land use. Likewise, the reform of the purchasing law, among others,” the president pointed out during his two-year government speech.
The president’s announcement comes a few weeks after the United States Embassy in the Dominican Republic unveiled its Report on Trafficking in Persons 2022. In said report, the US diplomatic body ensures that the country “does not fully comply with the standards minimum for the elimination of trafficking in persons. But it is making significant efforts to do so. This places the country at level two in this area.”
Waiting for a law on human trafficking in the DR
Between the years 2018 and 2021, the Dominican authorities identified an average of 450 victims of the human trafficking in the country. And in the first half of 2022, some 88 cases were prosecuted, not counting the recent Cattleya operation in which 80 more victims were identified.
The Specialized Prosecutor’s Office Against Illicit Smuggling of Migrants and Trafficking in Persons (PETT) is responsible for implementing a national criminal policy to combat organized crime. It is in charge of complying with Law 137-03, which is the one that sanctions the crimes of Illicit Smuggling of Migrants and Human Trafficking.
Said law dates from 2003. And it penalizes all forms of labor trafficking and some forms of sex trafficking and establishes penalties of 15 to 20 years in prison and fines of up to 175 minimum wages.
but the law requires a show of force, fraud, or coercion to constitute a crime of child sex trafficking. Likewise, it does not criminalize all forms of sex trafficking in minors.
