Revised Laws of Saint Lucia (2021)

2.   Interpretation

In this Act—

“abuse of a position of vulnerability”

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    (a)     means such abuse that the person believes he or she has no reasonable alternative but to submit to the labour or service demanded of the person; and

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    (b)     includes, but is not limited to taking advantage of the vulnerabilities resulting from the person having entered the country illegally or without proper documentation, pregnancy, and physical or mental disease or disability of the person including addiction to the use of any substance, or reduced capacity to form judgments by virtue of being a child;

child” means a person below the age of 18 years;

child pornography” means—

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    (a)     audio or visual depiction of any kind, whether—

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      (i)     made or produced by electronic, mechanical or other means, or

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      (ii)     embodied in a disc, tape, film or other device, whether electronically or otherwise, so as to be capable of being retrieved or reproduced there-from, of sexually explicit conduct involving a child; or

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    (b)     any representation of the genitalia of a child, where such audio or visual depiction or representation lacks genuine literary, artistic, or scientific value;

coercion” means violent as well as some form of non-violent or psychological coercion, including—

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    (a)     threats of serious harm to or physical restraints against any person;

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    (b)     any scheme, plan or pattern intended to cause a person to believe that failure to perform an act would result in serious harm to or physical restraint against any person; or

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    (c)     the abuse or threatened abuse of the legal process;

debt bondage” means the status or condition of a debtor arising from a pledge by the debtor of his or her personal services or those of the persons under his or her control as a security for debt, if the value of those services as reasonably assessed is not applied toward the liquidation of the debt or the length and nature of those services are not respectively limited and defined;

exploitation” means at a minimum—

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    (a)     keeping a person in a state of slavery;

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    (b)     subjecting a person to practices similar to slavery;

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    (c)     compelling or causing a person to provide forced labour or services;

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    (d)     keeping a person in a state of servitude, including sexual servitude;

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    (e)     the exploitation of the prostitution of another;

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    (f)     engaging in any form of commercial sexual exploitation, including but not limited to pimping, pandering, procuring, profiting from prostitution, maintaining a brothel, child pornography;

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    (g)     illicit removal of human organs;

exploitation of the prostitution of others” means the deriving by one person of monetary or other benefit through the provision of sexual services for money or other benefit by another person;

forced labour” means labour or services obtained or maintained through force, threat of force, or other means of coercion or physical restraint;

illicit removal of human organs” means the unlawful removal of organs, tissue or body parts from a victim irrespective of whether the victim consented to such removal and is not a legitimate medical procedure for which proper consent has been obtained;

Minister” means the Minister responsible for National Security;

organized criminal group” means a structured group of three or more persons, existing for a period of time and acting in concert with the aim of committing one or more offences established in this law in order to obtain, directly or indirectly, a financial or other material benefit;

practices similar to slavery” means, in general, debt bondage, serfdom, forced or servile marriages and delivery of children for exploitation;

Protocol” means the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons especially women and children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, the text of which is set out in the Schedule;

restitution” means financial or other compensation for the victim for damages suffered during the process of being trafficked;

servitude” means a condition of dependency in which labour or services of a person are provided or obtained by threats of serious harm to that person or another person, or through any scheme, plan or pattern intended to cause the person to believe that, if the person did not perform such labour or services, that person or another person would suffer serious harm;

sexual exploitation” means compelling the participation of a person in—

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    (a)     prostitution;

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    (b)     the production of child pornography or other pornographic materials;

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    (c)     any other sexual activity as a result of being subjected to threat, coercion, abduction, the effects of narcotic drugs, force of authority or fraud;

sexually explicit conduct” includes actual or simulated sexual activity, such as sexual intercourse whether between persons of the same or opposite sex and whether involving genital, anal or oral sex, bestiality, masturbation, sadistic or masochistic abuse;

slavery” means the status or condition of a person over whom any or all the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised;

trafficking in children” means the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of a child for the purpose of exploitation, irrespective of whether any of the means described in the definition of “trafficking in persons” has been established;

trafficking in persons” means the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons by means of the threat or use of force or other means of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability, or giving or receiving of payment or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation;

travel documents” means any document that can be used for travel between States such as—

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    (a)     a passport;

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    (b)     a visa;

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    (c)     a tourist card;

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    (d)     an airline ticket; and

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    (e)     any other document used under the laws of a State to establish identity in that State;

victim” means any person against whom the offence of trafficking in persons has been committed.