preview

Drug Trafficking In Panama

Decent Essays

Political Solution- Drug Trafficking: Not only is drug trafficking a major concern for Panama internally, but it is also a large issue externally, mainly in regards to their border disputes with its neighboring countries. As mentioned earlier in “Panama’s Three Major Issues,” according to CIA World Factbook, “Organized illegal narcotics operations in Colombia operate within the remote border region with Panama”, and historically Panama has been “...the destination of choice for smurfed money orders…” (Andelman). In order to make a dent in the drug trafficking issue, Panama needs to cohesively work with neighboring countries. This can be done by making major improvements in the government and military. One suggestion presented by President …show more content…

For Panama, the government and people can work together to reduced to poverty rates, and make society a better place. The World Bank estimated that as of 2013, nearly 25 percent of the population lived below the poverty line. A suggestion that was presented in a United Nations report, suggested that by setting up cooperative businesses, it can create a sustainable civil society and can help the poverty situation. Cynthia Giagnocavo introduced this suggestion, saying that “Cooperative business enterprises are a powerful and useful tool by which to build civil society capacity and to help people out of poverty...” (Giagnocavo, 10). Therefore, by setting up more businesses, the country and people will benefit; there will be more jobs available for the unemployed, and the government will be able to grow. Another suggestion that can help to eradicate poverty, is by helping the environmental movements. Luis Rodriguez notes, “It is now recognised that environmental degradation is a major barrier for poverty reduction; at the same time, reaching environmental conservation goals requires progress in the eradication of poverty.” Therefore, Rodriguez concludes that to eradicate poverty, we should at the same time take into consideration the environmental initiatives, and work on them together. By having the citizens and government work together, Panama can make large advancements towards putting an end to …show more content…

In order to help the millions of men, women, and children who are victims of trafficking, Panama has many suggestions available to them. As mentioned in the “Panama’s Three Major Issues,” The U.S. Department of State reports: “No [Panamanian] law expressly prohibits forced labor of adults or children, although the government stated that forced labor could be prosecuted under provisions of constitutional law and other civil and criminal statutes.” Economically, many businesses thrive off of human trafficking as a way to increase production by holding down the price of goods, mainly since the workers are being paid less. Therefore, the Panamanian government first should start by setting strict laws prohibiting labor trafficking. Although this will hurt the economy, millions of human rights violations occur every year, which is the important matter. The Panamanian government can make up for this in other ways. Also, Panama can help the situation by working with the United Nations. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) works to help root out human trafficking, and the UNODC “...offers practical help to States, not only helping to draft laws and create comprehensive national anti-trafficking strategies but also assisting with resources to implement them.” Therefore, Panama should closely work with the UNODC to help put an end to this

Get Access