RECOMMENDATIONS   FOR ARUBA:
Proactively identify trafficking victims among all vulnerable groups, including domestic workers, migrants in construction, minimarkets, and retail shops, and women in the regulated prostitution industry and on adult entertainment visas; formalize standard operating procedures on the identification and referral of trafficking victims for all front-line responders; widely disseminate these procedures to encourage their use by staff in community-based youth programs, health workers, labor inspectors, and other officials; vigorously investigate and prosecute trafficking offenses, and convict and punish traffickers; systematically provide information to all immigrant populations upon their arrival in Aruba so they are familiar with their rights and where to go for help; provide the anti-trafficking committee with an independent budget and provide resources to enable the national coordinator to improve anti-trafficking efforts; and finalize and implement the action plan on human trafficking.

PROSECUTION
The government made uneven progress in anti-trafficking law enforcement efforts. Aruba prohibits all forms of trafficking in persons through Articles 203a and 286a of its criminal code. In 2014, the government enacted amendments to the penal code, which increased penalties for trafficking offenses to eight to 18 years’ imprisonment. These penalties are sufficiently stringent and are commensurate with those prescribed for other serious crimes, such as rape.The government investigated a potential case of domestic servitude involving an Indian man who worked as a cook and alleged his employer confiscated his passport, restricted his movements, and provided questionable living conditions.The public prosecutor, in coordination with police, determined that the case was not forced labor, despite indicators of trafficking. The government did not prosecute or convict any traffickers in 2014 compared with two convictions in 2013. In April 2014, a judge in Aruba denied a motion from a convicted trafficker for early release.The government did not report any investigations, prosecutions, or convictions of government officials complicit in human trafficking offenses. The national coordinator for anti- human trafficking and smuggling provided training on trafficking indicators to labor inspectors, physicians employed by the Ministry of Health, police officers and managers, and immigration officials.

PROTECTION
The government made uneven progress protecting victims. Authorities identified one potential labor trafficking victim, a decrease from two potential victims in 2013. The government provided the potential victim with emergency shelter, food, temporary immigration relief, and financial and repatriation assistance. The government reported a policy of providing assistance to victims, including shelter, legal assistance, and medical care, and referring victims to services who called a hotline for victims. Authorities maintained informal, verbal agreements with local NGOs and private sector accommodations to shelter adult victims.Victims were permitted to leave shelters unchaperoned after conducting a risk assessment. Aruba’s anti-trafficking taskforce continued to provide law enforcement and social services officials with a checklist of the 10 most common signs of human trafficking. The government allowed victims whose employers were suspected of human trafficking to change employers and could grant temporary immigration relief for three to six months on a case-by-case basis; the government provided this relief to the potential labor trafficking victim. The Aruban criminal code enables trafficking victims to file for restitution not to exceed 50,000 Aruban florins ($28,000) for financial and emotional damages or a civil suit against their traffickers. A multi-disciplinary government team conducted several inspections of construction sites on suspicions of human trafficking; however, no trafficking victims were identified. There were no reports of the government inappropriately punishing victims for unlawful acts committed as a direct result of being subjected to human trafficking.

PREVENTION
The government sustained prevention efforts. The anti-trafficking taskforce, led by a national coordinator, coordinated Aruba’s anti- trafficking efforts and prevention activities. Officials reported the taskforce lacked adequate staffing and a dedicated budget for

† Aruba is an autonomous entity within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. For the purpose of this report, Aruba is not a “country” to which the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking in the Trafficking Victims Protection Act apply.This narrative reflects how Aruba would be assessed if it were a separate, independent country.

training, shelter, and other forms of victim assistance.The taskforce continued drafting a 2014-2018 action plan on human trafficking. The government worked with Kingdom partners to update the memorandum of understanding about next steps in the anti- human trafficking effort. The government continued to promote a trafficking awareness campaign, which included posters and flyers in four languages targeting both victims and the general public and linked to a hotline staffed by the national coordinator trained to assist trafficking victims. In an effort to reduce the demand for commercial sex acts, 2014 amendments to the criminal code criminalized the receipt of services from a trafficking victim if the individual knows the victim is being forced or coerced to provide the services.The government did not report efforts to reduce the demand for forced labor.There were no known reports of child sex tourism occurring in Aruba or of Arubans participating in international sex tourism.The government provided anti-trafficking training or guidance for its diplomatic personnel.

AUSTRALIA:  Tier 1 
Australia is primarily a destination country for women and girls subjected to sex trafficking and, increasingly, for women and men subjected to forced labor. Child sex trafficking occurs involving a small number of Australian citizens, primarily teenage girls, as well as foreign victims exploited within the country. Some women from Asia and—to a lesser extent—Eastern Europe and Africa migrate to Australia to work legally or illegally in a number of sectors, including the sex trade. Subsequent to their arrival, some of these women are coerced into prostitution. Some foreign women—and sometimes girls—are held in captivity, subjected to physical and sexual violence and intimidation, manipulated through illegal drugs, and obliged to pay off unexpected or inflated debts to traffickers. Some victims of sex trafficking and some women who migrate to Australia for arranged marriages are subjected to domestic servitude. Unscrupulous employers and labor agencies subject some men and women from Asia and several Pacific Islands, recruited to work temporarily in Australia, to forced labor in agriculture, construction, hospitality, and domestic servitude.Traffickers often operate independently or are part of small organized crime networks that frequently involve family and business connections between Australians and overseas contacts. Many identified victims are foreign citizens on student visas who pay significant placement and academic fees. Unscrupulous employers coerce students to work in excess of the terms of their visas, making them vulnerable to trafficking due to fears of deportation for immigration violations. Some foreign diplomats allegedly subject domestic workers to forced labor in Australia.
The Government of Australia fully complies with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking. The government prosecuted more suspected traffickers than in the previous reporting period, though it failed to convict any offenders. The government increased the number of victims identified and referred to the government-funded support program. It continued awareness efforts to combat child sex tourism, but unlike in 2013, it did not prosecute or convict any Australian nationals for such crimes.The government also launched a five-year national action plan to combat human trafficking.