MONROVIA, March 20 (LINA) - The Ministry of Labor will on Tuesday, March 25, launch a five-year action plan aimed at curtailing human trafficking in the country.
Making the disclosure at the Ministry of Information regular press briefing on Thursday in Monrovia, Labor Minister Cllr. F. Juah Lawson, said her ministry has been mandated by President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf to lead the fight against this heinous crime in Liberia.
Minister Lawson said the Ministry of Labor is working in collaboration with other line ministries and agencies of Government, including the Ministry of Justice, in leading this national campaign.
According to Minister Lawson, a national action plan was drafted by the Ministry of Labor and presented to the cabinet in 2013 and was endorsed as the Government's official road map in the fight against trafficking in persons.
She told journalists at the press briefing that the national action plan is an illustration of Government's commitment to meeting basic national and international benchmarks in the fight against human trafficking.
Minister Lawson disclosed that the plan encompasses clearly defined sets of program strategies aimed at adequately dealing with all matters of human trafficking throughout the country in a coordinated and sustained manner.
She said the five-year action plan also signifies the Government's zero tolerance stance in the fight against all forms of human trafficking in Liberia, as it is in direct response to local,
regional and international realities.
The Labor Ministry boss further disclosed that the Government is committed to not only fight child trafficking locally, but also regionally and internationally, as the trappings of human trafficking are regionally and globally entrenched as a lucrative criminal enterprise.
Liberia's fight against human/child trafficking started in 2005 when the Transitional Legislative Assembly of the National Transitional Government was passed into law, an act that banned and criminalized all forms of human trafficking in Liberia.
The Act specifically established that trafficking in persons (TIP) shall mean "the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of a person by means of threat or use of force, or other means of coercion, fraud, and deception, among others.
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