2022 Trafficking in Persons Report: Solomon Islands

• Draft, enact, and implement a stand-alone human trafficking law prohibiting all forms of the crime, proscribe dissuasive penalties, and remove sentencing provisions under current laws that allow fines in lieu of imprisonment for sex trafficking crimes occurring outside of Solomon Islands.
• Investigate and prosecute both sex trafficking and labor trafficking crimes and convict and punish traffickers, including complicit officials, with significant prison sentences.
• Increase efforts to identify Solomon Islander and foreign victims of sex trafficking and labor trafficking within the country, including in agriculture; the fishing, logging, and mining industries; and in relation to illicit commercial activities.
• In collaboration with civil society, screen for trafficking indicators and prevent penalization of victims for unlawful acts traffickers compelled them to commit among individuals in commercial sex, People’s Republic of China (PRC) nationals employed at worksites affiliated with PRC-based companies, communities located near mining and logging camps, and individuals—including children—apprehended for illegal fishing, desertion from foreign-registered fishing vessels, illegal logging, or immigration crimes and ensure all identified victims are referred to protective services.
• Provide comprehensive training on all relevant trafficking laws and victim identification procedures to immigration officials, law enforcement officers, and social service providers, including at the provincial level.
• Increase government support for victim protection, including through the allocation of funding to specialized shelter services and benefiting both male and female victims.
• Improve data collection on trafficking trends in Solomon Islands and disseminate among interagency anti-trafficking stakeholders.
• Institute a campaign to raise public awareness of trafficking, including among remote logging and mining communities in all provinces.
• Implement and fund the 2020-2025 NAP on human trafficking and people smuggling.
• Eliminate recruitment or placement fees charged to workers by labor recruiters and ensure any recruitment fees are paid by employers.
• Ratify existing forestry laws to include minimum social safeguards and child protection policies.
• Accede to the 2000 UN TIP Protocol.

The government increased its law enforcement efforts. The penal code, together with the Immigration Act, criminalized sex trafficking and labor trafficking. Article 143 of the penal code criminalized child sex trafficking under its “child commercial sexual exploitation” provision and prescribed penalties of up to 15 or 20 years’ imprisonment, based on the child’s age. Article 145 of the penal code criminalized sex trafficking and labor trafficking when the offense occurred within the country. Article 145(2) applied to trafficking offenses involving an element of force, fraud, or coercion; it prescribed penalties of up to 20 years’ imprisonment for offenses involving adult victims and up to 25 years’ imprisonment for offenses involving child victims. Article 145(3) prescribed penalties of up to 15 years’ imprisonment for offenses that did not involve an element of force, fraud, or coercion. These penalties were sufficiently stringent and, with respect to sex trafficking, commensurate with those prescribed for other serious crimes, such as kidnapping. The Immigration Act criminalized other forms of trafficking, including crimes in which the recruitment, transportation, harboring, or receipt of the trafficking victim occurred outside Solomon Islands. The Immigration Act prescribed penalties of up to five years’ imprisonment, a fine of up to 45,000 Solomon Islands dollars ($5,710), or both for the trafficking of adults; it prescribed a penalty of up to 10 years’ imprisonment, a fine of up to 90,000 Solomon Islands dollars ($11,410), or both for the trafficking of children. These penalties were sufficiently stringent, but with respect to sex trafficking, by allowing for a fine in lieu of imprisonment, they were not commensurate with penalties prescribed for other serious offenses. Authorities continued to charge some trafficking cases under criminal statutes carrying lesser penalties. In coordination with a regional body, the government continued to review the Immigration Act to identify gaps in trafficking-specific provisions, among others. The government allocated 920,000 Solomon Islands dollars ($116,660) in the previous reporting period to support the development of a comprehensive human trafficking statute and accede to the UNTOC and its supplementary protocols, including the TIP Protocol; the government did not report adopting the statute, and it did not accede to the TIP Protocol.

Authorities initiated three sex trafficking investigations, compared with two investigations in 2020. Authorities initiated one prosecution of an alleged sex trafficker with charges under the penal code; this was the first trafficking prosecution since 2017. For the second consecutive year, the government did not convict any traffickers. Observers noted the government prosecuted and convicted some potential trafficking cases under non-trafficking statutes. The government trained immigration officers on human trafficking, migrant smuggling, and trafficking-related laws; the government did not report providing anti-trafficking training to police or judicial officials. Geographic challenges, insufficient funding of enforcement agencies, lack of technical expertise, low judicial and police capacity, and a lack of awareness of the crime and of the relevant laws among front-line officers, particularly in remote areas of the country, adversely affected the government’s ability to respond effectively to trafficking cases. In addition, observers ascribed a higher likelihood of acquittals and dismissals of such cases to backlogs in court, incomplete investigations, insufficient evidence or lack of testimony, and safety concerns among victims and their families. Traditional justice practices involving retribution or informal compensation arrangements between victims’ families and traffickers, continued to supplant formal law enforcement efforts and further complicated victims’ access to justice. The government did not report any investigations, prosecutions, or convictions of government employees complicit in human trafficking crimes. Observers reported a national state of emergency due to the pandemic restricted movement among locals, which may have limited the reporting of trafficking crimes; observers reported the government redirected resources, including those related to anti-trafficking efforts, among government agencies as a result of civil unrest in November 2021 and the pandemic, which may have adversely affected the government’s ability to detect and address trafficking.

The government decreased efforts to protect trafficking victims. The government identified three Solomon Islander child trafficking victims, compared with four victims in 2020. The government did not report implementing its updated victim identification, referral, and protection SOPs and coordination mechanisms developed in partnership with an international organization during the previous reporting period. Authorities and civil society protection partners continued to rely on disparate victim identification and referral processes that they applied unevenly to potential trafficking cases. Due to a lack of formal identification procedures, authorities may have detained unidentified trafficking victims. Authorities did not report efforts to screen for or identify trafficking victims among individuals in commercial sex; observers reported in prior years that authorities may have arrested and prosecuted sex trafficking victims for alleged “prostitution” violations without screening to determine whether they were trafficking victims.

Authorities referred the three identified child victims to general protective services; however, the government did not provide trafficking-specific protective services. The government did not report allocating resources to fund investigations, public awareness, and victim protection or assistance from the Immigration Division’s budget, compared with 380,000 Solomon Islands dollars ($48,190) in 2020. The Royal Solomon Islands Police Force operated a domestic violence shelter in Honiara that could provide services to women and child sex trafficking victims; however, most trafficking victims came from the provinces, making services exclusively located in Honiara difficult to access. The government could not provide shelter for adult males or victims of labor trafficking. Due to lengthy legal processes, fear of retaliation by traffickers or prosecution by police, and a lack of incentives to remain and participate in cases, some unidentified foreign victims may have opted to return to their home countries. Observers noted these insufficiencies in protection services likely discouraged some victims from testifying in court proceedings, thereby hindering prosecutorial progress. The Immigration Act granted the government authority to provide temporary residence permits for foreign victims to assist police with investigations, and it insulated foreign victims against prosecution for suspected immigration-related crimes traffickers compelled them to commit. However, the government did not report providing these or other services to any foreign victims, as it did not report identifying any during the reporting period. The government did not report if it would extend these protections to foreign victims whose cases authorities investigated under the penal code.

In the previous reporting period, the government developed a victim protection policy in connection with the newly adopted NAP focused on provisions to encourage victims’ voluntary participation in investigations and prosecutions; the government did not report an update to its implementation. The government reported trafficking victims could seek compensation from their employers through civil suits, although it reported that no victims had ever filed such suits. The government did not provide legal alternatives to the removal of foreign trafficking victims to countries where they might face retribution or hardship. Observers reported the government redirected resources, including those related to anti-trafficking efforts, among government agencies as a result of civil unrest in November 2021 and the pandemic and did not prioritize trafficking efforts throughout the reporting period.

The government slightly decreased efforts to prevent trafficking. The Anti-Human Trafficking Advisory Committee (AHTAC), which included government agencies and members of civil society, led the country’s anti-trafficking efforts. The government adopted its NAP against Human Trafficking and People Smuggling 2020-2025, developed in partnership with an international organization. The government reported it was unable to hold anti-trafficking programs planned by the AHTAC due to the pandemic. Unlike the previous reporting period, the Immigration Division did not report conducting awareness-raising campaigns targeting communities near logging and mining operations; the government did not report conducting any awareness campaigns during the reporting period. The government did not operate or support an anti-trafficking hotline.

Labor inspectors conducted routine inspections; however, the government did not report providing anti-trafficking training to its inspectors. For the third consecutive year, the Labor Division did not report conducting any monitoring and inspection activities at logging operations or in the fishing or mining sectors. Forestry officials stated a lack of industry regulation or laws outlining child protection and social safeguards prevented them from detecting and investigating potential abuses, including trafficking, related to logging operations’ impact on local communities. In November 2021, the government, in partnership with international organizations, developed a policy framework to set minimum terms and conditions for crewmembers working on licensed foreign and domestic-flagged fishing vessels operating in Solomon Islands’ waters in an effort to address trafficking risks among crewmembers. The interagency Business Monitoring Joint Agency Committee (BMJAC) monitored, inspected, and investigated breaches of labor laws. Unlike the previous reporting period, the government did not report funding BMJAC inspections and monitoring activities. The government did not report taking comprehensive measures to assess or address forced labor in supply chains or enforce its labor laws. Furthermore, the government did not prohibit worker-paid recruitment fees.

The government did not make efforts to reduce the demand for commercial sex acts. The government did not provide anti-trafficking training to its diplomatic personnel. In partnership with an international organization, the government prepared to accede to the UNTOC and its supplementary protocols, including the TIP Protocol, through a series of consultations and sensitization workshops; however, border closures due to the pandemic and domestic policy priorities focused on the pandemic and civil unrest reportedly delayed the process. The government funded an additional sensitization workshop to increase local-level awareness of the benefits of accession; but the government did not accede by the end of the reporting period. Solomon Islands was not a party to the TIP Protocol.

As reported over the past five years, human traffickers exploit domestic and foreign victims in Solomon Islands, and traffickers exploit victims from Solomon Islands abroad. Traffickers exploit local, South Asian, and Southeast Asian men and women in forced labor and sex trafficking in Solomon Islands, and local children are especially vulnerable to sex trafficking and labor trafficking. Women from the PRC, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines often pay large recruitment fees for jobs in Solomon Islands and upon arrival are forced or coerced into commercial sex. Labor traffickers exploit men from Indonesia and Malaysia in the logging, fishing, palm oil, and mining industries. Fishermen from Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), and Fiji report situations indicative of labor trafficking, including non-payment of wages, dire living conditions, violence, and limited food supply, on Taiwan-flagged fishing vessels in Solomon Islands’ territorial waters and ports. Individuals from the PRC may have been forced to work in Solomon Islands at projects run by PRC-based companies. Traffickers exploit Solomon Islander children in sex trafficking and forced labor within the country, sometimes in exchange for money or goods, particularly near foreign logging camps, on foreign and local commercial fishing vessels, and at hotels, casinos, nightclubs, and other entertainment establishments. The inflow of a cash economic system, coupled with the continuation of an unregulated logging industry, has increased vulnerability to trafficking in remote communities, specifically for women and children. Contacts have observed a recent increase in commercial sex—and a concomitant uptick in sex trafficking—resulting from certain economic changes. Family members are often the facilitators of such transactional agreements. Natural disasters significantly increase Solomon Islanders’ vulnerability to trafficking; Solomon Islanders affected by a cyclone in 2020 may be at higher risk of trafficking due to the economic hardships caused by the destruction. Anecdotal reporting showed an increase in the sexual exploitation of girls, some of which may have been sex trafficking, as many returned to remote villages as a result of the pandemic.

Some official corruption—especially in relation to facilitating irregular migration and involvement in the fishing and forestry sectors—may enable trafficking. Some boys, girls, and young women are recruited for domestic work and subsequently exploited in commercial sex at logging camps. Under informal or traditional justice practices, parents frequently receive payments for sending young women and girls into forced marriages with foreign workers at logging and mining companies, where many of them are exploited in domestic servitude or sex trafficking. Often these payments are rendered after the victims escape or are returned home as informal compensation brokered by local leadership. In this way, local community leaders may also benefit financially from these arrangements. Mining and logging camp leadership reportedly force boys to serve as solairs—illicit brokers procuring girls for sexual and domestic service in worker lodging facilities—and logging camp personnel force young males to work as domestic servants and cooks. Following the government’s decision to cease issuance of new logging licenses, a decline in the industry has contributed to an increase in internal economic migration of communities located in former logging areas; these displaced communities may be at higher risk of sex trafficking and forced labor. Elsewhere, Solomon Islander children may be subjected to forced labor in the agricultural sector, forced harvesting of seafood, and forced criminality in the manufacturing and transportation of drugs and in pickpocketing. Anecdotal reports show an increase in children involved in street vending, begging, and pickpocketing during the pandemic. To pay off debts, some parents reportedly sell their children to other families via “informal adoption” that often involves forced labor or sexual servitude. Traffickers also use Solomon Islands as a transit point to subject foreign individuals to trafficking in other countries.