BARBADOS IS NOW a State Party to the United Nations Convention on Transnational Organised Crime, and three of the Convention’s supplementary protocols.
These protocols are: the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially women and children; the Protocol against Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air; and the Protocol against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, their Parts and Components and Ammunition.
The Instrument of Ratification was presented today to the United Nations Treaty Section in New York, by the Permanent Representative of Barbados to the United Nations, Joseph Goddard.
The Convention provides a framework to effectively prevent and combat transnational organised crime and State Parties are legally bound to implement its provisions. These include the obligation to criminalise participation in an organised criminal group, money laundering, corruption and the obstruction of justice.
The Convention also outlines measures to be implemented by State Parties to prevent, investigate and prosecute these crimes.
The three Protocols contain specific provisions aimed at preventing, combating and punishing trafficking in persons, the smuggling of migrants and the illicit manufacture of and trafficking in firearms, their parts, components and ammunition.
Barbados signed the instruments to become a State Party to the Convention and its Protocols in September 2001. (BGIS)
