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Last night we told you about Belize's dismal performance on the US Trafficking in Persons Report. The Americans say that Belize has made no progress in preventing human trafficking cases, prosecuting trafficking offenders and protecting victims. As a result of this evaluation, Belize is now listed as a Tier 3 country – which is the lowest rank. Well according to the CEO of the Human Development sector, Judith Alpuche – this is an utterly unfair assessment of Belize's efforts. In an extensive interview today, Alpuche told us that the US is only reflecting Belize's low conviction rate among other shortfalls rather than highlighting the existing programs and services implemented to deal with this issue. Now she admits that Belize is not as advanced in the availability of services and facilities for victims compared to other countries but she also firmly states that Belize IS working towards curbing human trafficking.

Judith Alpuche - CEO, Ministry of Human Development, Social Transformation and Poverty Alleviation

"What we have found and this year is no different is that what they focus on is convictions. It's abundantly clear in their report and we did not get a conviction and so I think it's not surprising to us. What is disappointing however is that there seems to be a narrative constructed to support this idea of you did not do anything. And I don't know if that is because in the past we have pointed out to say, well how can you downgrade us for this one area when you point out that we have done well in other areas. So the narrative is a bit different."

"There's not mention here of the fact that we were busy last year training all front line personnel from one end of this country to the other in the new provisions for the trafficking in persons prohibition act. That we were training people, police, social workers, immigration, labour, education, health and we were training them together as cross disciplinary groups for them to understand themselves as an entire system that respond to these issues. They training included not only trafficking in persons act but the whole battery of legal tools available to deal with this matter. So the commercial sexual exploitation of children's act, the new amendment in criminal code, so really helping them to understand - well you might not be able to deal with it under human trafficking but there's some other aspects here. The conviction is the tail end of an entire process, that's the outcome. So it goes from victim identification to working with that victim. Preparing that person to be a witness. Sometimes you identify people and they don't want to cooperate because they just want the nightmare to be over. They want to go home, they have been rescued, they were led here on false premises, they have been in living hell and they want to go home and we have to respect that because we're not dictating people. So convictions, it has to pass through the entire judicial system and we know that our judicial system is backed up, it's over crowded."

"We do not lie about our numbers because that is what it is. We will not fudge the data and the statistics because that's not useful. And we will not say by any means that the system is perfect, that's not what I'm saying at all. What I have a difficulty with is this, what tier 3 means, that you're not doing anything. And you read the report and that's basically what it said. We know that it is work in progress, we don't expect to be on tier 1; because we are working towards those minimum standards."

Alpuche added that there is a Focal point representative that focuses solely on the work of the Anti-trafficking in persons council and that a country wide training was organized involving all stakeholders in 2014. Also in connection with this issue, tomorrow is observed as Global Day against trafficking in persons. To be a apart of the activities for the day you can participate in the Blue Heart Selfie campaign by posting your picture on the Anti – trafficking in persons council Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/ATIPSBZ?fref=ts