Interpretation

In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires“abuse of a position of vulnerability” means– (a) an abuse committed on a person where the person abused believes he has no reasonable alternative but to submit to the labour or service demand of him; or; (b) taking advantage of the vulnerabilities of the abused person resulting from the abused (i) having entered Belize illegally or without proper (ii) being pregnant; Trafficking In Persons (Prohibition) [CAP. 108:01 7 (iii) having a disease whether physical or mental; (iv) having a disability; or (v) being addicted to alcohol or any illegal drugs, which reduced the abused person’s capacity to form judgment; “child” means a person below the age of eighteen years; “coercion” includes– (a) violent as well as non-violent forms of psychological coercion; (b) threats of serious harm to, or physical restraints against, any person; (c) any scheme, plan or pattern intended to cause a person to believe that failure to perform would result in harm to, or physical restraint against, any person; or (d) the abuse or threatened abuse of the legal process; “conveyance” means a vehicle, vessel, ship, aircraft or any other mode of transport whether by air, sea or land; “Council” means the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Council established under section 5; “debt bondage” means the status or condition of a debtor from a pledge by the debtor of his personal services or those of a person under his control as a security or payment for debt, when the 8 length and nature of services is not respectively limited and is not clearly defined or the value of those services as reasonable assessed is not applied towards the liquidation of the debt or where the length and nature of those services are not respectively limited and defined; “exploitation” means– (a) keeping a person in a state of slavery; (b) subjecting a person to practices similar to slavery; (c) compelling or causing a person to provide forced labour or services; (d) keeping a person in a state of servitude, including sexual servitude; (e) exploiting another person by using such person, directly or indirectly, as a prostitute; (f) engaging in any form of commercial sexual exploitation, including pimping, pandering or procuring prostitution, or profiting from sexual prostitution, maintaining a brothel, or engaging in pornography or strip tease dances where females or males dance nude or in a state or semi-nudity; or (g) illicit removal of human organs; “forced labour” means labour or services obtained or maintained through force, threats of force, or other means of coercion; “forfeiture” means the permanent deprivation of property by order of a court or other competent authority; Trafficking In Persons (Prohibition) [CAP. 108:01 9 “illicit removal of human organs” means the unlawful removal of human organs and does not include legitimate medical procedures for which proper consent has been obtained under “Minister” means the Minister responsible for human development; “organized criminal group or network” means a structured group of three or more persons acting in concert with the aim of committing a criminal offence in order to obtain, directly or indirectly, a financial or other material benefit; “pornography” includes a photograph, film, video or other visual representation, whether or not made by electronic, mechanical, artistic or other methods, that shows, for a sexual (a) a person engaging in explicit sexual activity or conduct; (b) parts of a person’s body pasted to visual representation; or (c) parts of a person’s body which have been rendered complete by computer generated images or by other methods of visual representation, but does not include any written or visual representation produced for the purpose of education, counseling, the promotion of reproductive health or as part of related criminal investigation and prosecution; “practices similar to slavery” has the meaning assigned to it in the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery; 10 and includes debt bondage, serfdom, force servile marriages and delivery of children for exploitation; “proceeds of trafficking” means any property derived, obtained or realized directly or indirectly as a result of or in connection with the offence of trafficking in persons and includes, on a proportional basis, property into which any property derived or realized directly from the offence was later converted, transformed or intermingled, as well as income, capital or other economic gains derived or realized from such property at any time since the conviction or commission of the crime; “property” includes money, investments, holdings, possessions and assets of every kind, whether corporeal or incorporeal, movable or immovable, legal documents or instruments evidencing title, or interest in such assets, wherever situate; “prostitution” means any act or practice of engaging in sex or other bodily contact or stimulation of the genitals of a person with intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desires of that person or another, such act or practice performed for hire or a fee, commission, reward or profit but excludes sexual activity between spouses; “public office” means any office of emolument in the public “receiving country” means a country into which a victim of trafficking in persons is brought as part of an act of trafficking “servitude” means a condition of dependency in which the labour or services of a person are provided or obtained by threats of harm to that person or another person, or through any scheme, plan, or pattern intended to cause that person to believe that, if the person did not perform, someone would suffer harm; Trafficking In Persons (Prohibition) [CAP. 108:01 11 “slavery” means the status or condition of a person over whom any or all the powers attaching to the rights of ownership are exercised; “spouse” includes a member of a common law union as defined by section 148D of the Supreme Court of Judicature Act; and CAP. 91. “trafficking in persons” means the recruitment, transportation, transfer, habouring or receipt of a person by means of threat or use of force or other means of coercion, or abduction, fraud, deception, abuse of power or abuse of a position of vulnerability, or by the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control of or over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.