Committee sends bill against human trafficking to parliament

The National Security Committee has completed its assessment of the bill against human trafficking, which states that human trafficking is a crime that carries a sentence of seven, ten or fifteen years in prison.

The assessment of the bill, sponsored by former President Mohamed Waheed’s government and submitted to parliament by Hanimaadhoo MP Mohamed Mujthaz last year, was completed by the committee on 27 November.

The committee said that the bill was passed because the enforcement of a law against human trafficking has been delayed in the Maldives, and because the Maldives was included in the Tier 2 Watch List in the ‘Trafficking in Persons Report’ issued by the US earlier this year, and failure to pass this bill could mean that the Maldives falls further down this list.

The bill states that it is a crime to use force to transfer people from one country to another through planning or deception, and that the transfer of people from one region to another in the Maldives would also be categorised as acts of human trafficking.

Human trafficking of a child is defined as the act of forcing a child to provide a service or work in a manner that could put the child’s health or safety at risk.

The penalty for human trafficking is ten years in prison. The penalty for child trafficking is fifteen years in prison, and the penalty for involvement in organising human trafficking is seven years in prison.

If a member of a law enforcement institution is convicted of human trafficking, he would be given fifteen years in prison.