Significant efforts on the part of the Government to eliminate human trafficking in Barbados have resulted in a marginal upgrade in status to Tier Two on the US Department of State’s 2022 Trafficking in Persons Report.However, the country has not met the minimum standards in several key areas, including providing penalties commensurate with other serious crimes, according to the report which focused on the progress made to prosecute perpetrators, protect victims and prevent trafficking.Barbados previously appeared on the Tier 2 Watchlist in the 2021 list, narrowly avoiding a further downgrade to Tier 3, which is the State Department’s lowest rating. “The Government demonstrated overall increasing efforts compared with the previous reporting period, considering the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on its anti-trafficking capacity; therefore, Barbados was upgraded to Tier 2,” the report stated.
