AN American official yesterday said Jamaica could avoid US sanctions if the Patterson Administration implements, within the next three months, an action plan on human trafficking compiled by Washington.

Yesterday’s development came against last week’s release of the 2005 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report that tagged Jamaica as a transit point for illegal migrants moving to the US and Canada and claimed that Jamaican children were being trafficked internally for the purpose of sexual exploitation.

The report, which surveyed 150 nations, was for the period March 2004 to March 2005.

Yesterday, Rachel Owen, the country officer for Jamaica in the US Department of State Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, said the US Government – through its Kingston office – would work with Jamaica to undertake the action plan during the three-month grace period and have the island’s rating elevated from the bottom of the pile and removed from the American watch list.

“The action plan lays out specific steps, and one thing we have asked the Government to do is to set up a special police unit (to focus) primarily on the sexual exploitation of children,” she said in a video-conference meeting with local journalists at the US Embassy in Kingston.

Other aspects of the action plan, Owen said, include public awareness and outreach programmes.

She said there were already some positive reactions on the part of the Government of Jamaica.

“We have already seen some (good) reactions from the Jamaican government which is positive; the Ministry of National Security sent us some things; there seem to be a lot of positive actions there,” Owen told journalists.

Prime Minister P J Patterson, in a briefing with editors on Wednesday, said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the US State Department had started discussions on issues raised in the trafficking of persons report and to have them addressed within the three-month deadline.

He said also that Cabinet on Monday appointed a group, consisting of representatives of the education, national security, health and foreign affairs ministries, the Planning Institute of Jamaica, Immigration Department and the Attorney General’s Department to address the issue raised in the US report and to look at areas that need strengthening.

Patterson, however, had concerns about the way the US State Department arrived at its ratings.

Last Sunday the Jamaican Government slammed the report, calling the claims “highly prejudicial” and demanded that the US Government provide proof to substantiate the horrid claims.

On Wednesday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it was in the process of formulating a response to the charges by the US, saying it would examine the claims and “embark on a number of diplomatic actions” to have the island’s name cleared from the watch list.

Yesterday, US Ambassador John Miller, who heads the TIP office, did not specify what sanctions Jamaica could face if it fails to meet the three-month deadline, but said such sanctions would not include humanitarian aid and trade-related assistance.

He said he was, however, confident that Jamaica would do what needs to be done to avoid being penalised.

“We will be working with Jamaica to make progress on the issue,” he said, noting that Jamaica was demoted based on the country’s failure to follow through on previous commitments it made in that order.

Ambassador Miller sought to explain the criteria used to evaluate the countries. Such criteria, he said, exclude the size of the problem.

“We evaluate based on efforts by the government to combat the problem (and) look at (such things as) law enforcement efforts and prevention efforts,” he told journalists.

“When it comes to enforcement we do not see any prosecution or convictions taking place in the last year in Jamaica,” he said.

The report, he said, was compiled using data from the International Labour Organisation, UNICEF, and stories carried in local newspapers.

“Jamaica’s challenges rest on trafficking of persons from rural to urban areas and tourist areas for prostitution,” he explained.

martina@jamaicaobserver.com