The U.S. State Department found significant improvement in Costa Rica’s governmental efforts to prosecute human traffickers, protect victims and prevent this heinous crime, according to the agency’s 2017 Report on Trafficking in Persons published last week.

In the case of Costa Rica, the government’s efforts showed notable success when compared with the 2016 study, allowing country to rise a level in the global evaluation.

Among the main successes highlighted in the report were:

• Increased funding from the national budget to governmental institutions working against trafficking and smuggling.
• Funds and technical support to open a second emergency shelter.
• Addressing complicity through the accusation of a former mayor and four suspected accomplices on charges of establishing a trafficking network.
• Identifying more trafficking victims than the previous year.
• Improvement of activities to raise public awareness about forced labor.

“I commend the Costa Rican government for its efforts in the fight against trafficking in persons and, at the same time, I call for the continuation of the process of modifying Costa Rican legislation on trafficking in persons, to one that allows the country better prosecution and conviction of traffickers,” said U.S. Ambassador S. Fitzgerald Haney.

Traffickers around the world, in every region and almost every country, exploit more than 20 million victims in forced labor and sex trafficking. This multi-billion dollar industry destroys families and communities, weakens law enforcement, strengthens criminal networks and offends universal concepts of human decency, said the report.

The 2017 Trafficking Report can be found at: https://www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/index.htm