Fund and fully implement the 2020-2024 NAP, including its provisions to establish the national anti-trafficking secretariat and fund. * Increase efforts to identify trafficking victims, including among vulnerable populations. * Fund and expand access to adequate specialized victim services, including for male victims. * Investigate and prosecute alleged traffickers, including complicit officials, and seek adequate penalties for convicted traffickers, which should include significant prison terms. * Train officials to consistently utilize victim identification protocols and referral mechanisms to increase proactive identification of trafficking victims, including among minority and Indigenous populations. * Increase engagement with civil society actors to complement the government’s efforts to prevent trafficking and protect victims; enable regular civil society participation in the interagency roundtable. * Increase funding and staffing for the Paraguayan National Police Anti-Trafficking Unit (PNPTU). * Revise the definition of human trafficking under Law 4788/12 to ensure force, fraud, or coercion are essential elements of the crime as established consistent with the UN TIP Protocol. * Adopt reforms to eliminate abusive practices and working conditions that may amount to trafficking in criadazgo (child domestic servitude). * Train law enforcement officials to understand, investigate, and prosecute extraterritorial commercial child sexual exploitation cases under the anti-trafficking law. * Improve interagency coordination and adopt or develop a case management database for trafficking cases.

The government increased trafficking prosecutions, although it maintained overall anti-trafficking law enforcement efforts. The Comprehensive Anti-Trafficking Law 4788 of 2012 criminalized sex trafficking and labor trafficking and prescribed penalties of up to eight years’ imprisonment for cases involving adult victims and two to 20 years in prison for those involving child victims; these penalties were sufficiently stringent and, with respect to sex trafficking, commensurate with penalties prescribed for other grave crimes, such as rape. Inconsistent with the definition of trafficking under international law, Law 4788/12 established the use of force, fraud, and coercion as aggravating factors rather than essential elements of the crime; penalties were increased to two to 15 years’ imprisonment under such circumstances. Article 139 of the penal code, which relates to “pimping” crimes, was used during the reporting period to prosecute child sex trafficking offenses; however, it prescribed penalties of up to eight years in prison for offenses involving children, which are significantly lower than the penalties described under the anti-trafficking law.

The PNPTU and the public prosecutor’s Anti-Trafficking Unit (ATU) shared responsibility for investigating trafficking crimes; the ATU also acted as the lead prosecuting agency. In 2023, authorities initiated 82 trafficking investigations – 52 for sex trafficking, 26 for labor trafficking, and four for unspecified forms of trafficking – compared with 126 investigations in 2022 and 144 in 2021. Officials continued to investigate 133 ongoing cases initiated in previous years. Authorities filed preliminary charges against 10 suspected traffickers (eight for sex trafficking and two for labor trafficking), compared with prosecuting two suspected traffickers in 2022 and four in 2021. There were two ongoing prosecutions involving six accused traffickers, compared with five ongoing prosecutions involving five traffickers in 2022 and 25 in 2021. Judges convicted four traffickers (one sex trafficker and three labor traffickers), compared with convicting 16 traffickers in 2022. The convicted sex trafficker received a sentence of 15 years in prison, while the three labor traffickers each received a sentence of two years’ imprisonment. Courts also fined two of the convicted traffickers approximately $2,700 and $13,600, respectively, awarding the proceeds to victims as compensation.

In March 2023, the public prosecutor’s office designated a deputy attorney general to oversee the ATU and its trafficking cases, in addition to other duties; it also created a new position within the ATU, allowing the institution to hire a fourth prosecutor, although it had not done so by the end of the reporting period. Judges specializing in organized crime adjudicated Paraguay’s trafficking cases. Although the government did not report the budget allocated to anti-trafficking law enforcement efforts, government and civil society commentators indicated the PNPTU, like the other law enforcement units, continued to operate with insufficient resources, marking the unit’s sixth consecutive year of limited funding. The PNPTU comprised 38 specialized trafficking officers in 2023; this compared with 47 officers in 2022, and 41 in 2021. Observers indicated the unit needed more staff and additional offices in high-risk areas, including border zones and the international airport, to adequately perform its duties. In 2023, the ATU cooperated with foreign law enforcement officials on 35 investigations and two prosecutions, including a joint operation with Bolivian officials and complex joint investigations with Spanish authorities culminating in the arrest of 14 suspected traffickers. The government reported ratifying a new anti-trafficking law enforcement cooperation agreement with Bolivia. The government did not report any investigations, prosecutions, or convictions of government employees complicit in human trafficking crimes; corruption and complicity in trafficking crimes remained general concerns, although there were no confirmed reports. In partnership with international organizations, the government trained law enforcement officers and prosecutors on victim identification, investigative strategies, and seeking compensation for victims.

The government maintained protection efforts. The government lacked a centralized database to aggregate information across ministries and could not provide comprehensive data on victim protection. There were three agencies involved in victim identification: the ATU, the Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MWA), and the Ministry of Children and Adolescents (MINNA). These agencies reported identifying 63 victims – 12 sex trafficking victims, 47 labor trafficking victims, and four victims of unspecified forms of trafficking – in 2023. By comparison, the government reported identifying 67 victims in 2022 and 166 victims in 2021. Among the 63 victims identified, there were 13 women, 12 girls, 20 men, and 18 boys; one victim was Argentine, three were Venezuelan, 30 were Paraguayans exploited within the country, and 29 were Paraguayans exploited abroad in Argentina, Italy, Spain, and the United States. The government’s interagency anti-trafficking roundtable directed a national referral mechanism for prosecutors, police, labor inspectors, and border officials. Some government entities, such as the National Migration Office and Ministry of Health, had victim identification protocols, but there was no universal protocol to facilitate the proactive identification of victims. In 2023, the government published a new manual on victim identification in border areas in partnership with an international organization. Use of available referral and identification resources was inconsistent and ad hoc. MINNA maintained SOPs for the identification of child trafficking victims at national borders; the government reported identifying five child trafficking victims at national borders in 2023. Officials inconsistently screened for trafficking indicators among vulnerable individuals, including women in commercial sex and minority and Indigenous populations; as a result, authorities may have disproportionately penalized victims from these populations for unlawful acts committed as a direct result of being trafficked.

MWA operated a dedicated trafficking shelter equipped to serve up to 15 women victims. MWA could also serve women trafficking victims at its two domestic violence shelters, although it did not report whether any trafficking victims stayed at these shelters in 2023. MINNA could refer child victims to three shelters for vulnerable children, which primarily served girls; an NGO co-managed one of these shelters. MWA reported providing some form of support services to 31 trafficking victims, some of whom were identified in previous reporting periods, compared with 125 victims in 2022; ATU provided short-term emergency assistance to 20 victims. Officials referred five to MINNA shelters but did not report whether they referred victims to the MWA shelter in 2023. In the absence of sufficient shelter capacity, most victims, including children, returned to their homes, where they sometimes struggled to access other support services; returning home also increased victims’ vulnerability to re-trafficking, as victims’ families may have been involved in their exploitation. The government did not report whether its interagency working group to support provision of services to trafficking victims outside of government shelters remained active during the reporting period. The MWA continued to conduct at-home visits under its SOP for supporting victims leaving its shelter; it conducted 15 such visits in 2023. The MWA informally coordinated with other agencies to fund and distribute additional food and hygiene supplies to 15 victims. The government did not report providing cash transfers to support victims’ basic needs in 2023 or 2022; it last provided such transfers in 2021, when it provided them to 39 victims. However, in 2023, the government launched a new assistance program for trafficking victims, which offered cash subsidies to nine victims. In addition to shelter and food, the government had a limited ability to provide psychological support, social assistance, legal advice, and reintegration programs for some victims. The ATU, MINNA, and MWA collaborated to prioritize victims most in need of these services. The government did not issue any small business grants through its entrepreneurship program for trafficking survivors in 2023, compared with 28 in 2022. The government did not have a shelter to assist male trafficking victims; however, the ATU could provide psychological assistance, food, and immediate shelter at hotels before facilitating the return of male victims to their community of origin. In 2023, the ATU provided food support to one male victim and financial support to another; no male victims received shelter during the year. Aside from some funding provided to the NGO operating the MINNA shelter, the government did not provide assistance to or coordinate with NGOs providing victim services. Civil society observers indicated their ability to support victim service provisions was impacted by officials’ lack of routine, substantive cooperation with them. The overall quality of care for victims, particularly in rural areas, was inadequate due to limited resources and the lack of qualified personnel.

Government officials reported funding was insufficient to assist victims adequately. The ATU continued to provide basic assistance to trafficking victims due to gaps in other agencies’ victim services offerings. However, victim support was outside the ATU’s purview as an arm of the public prosecutor’s office; it did not receive government funding for victim assistance and relied on limited resources from an NGO-managed victims’ services fund. This fund supported the government’s case-by-case provision of food assistance, direct cash transfers, and reintegration programming for trafficking victims, although its balance was insufficient to finance the full range of victims’ needs. Observers noted funding for anti-trafficking efforts were insufficient and resources remained below pre-pandemic levels. MINNA provided approximately $50,000 to the NGO that operated the specialized shelter for underage victims, an increase compared with approximately $38,500 in 2022. Foreign trafficking victims were eligible for residence permits to remain in Paraguay; the government reported issuing a residence permit to one trafficking victim in 2023, the first time it had done so since 2020. Civil society reported high administrative fees made the application process burdensome for victims. The government helped repatriate 30 victims, all Paraguayans exploited abroad, in 2023, compared with three victims in 2022 and one in 2021. Law 4788/12 outlined a procedure to award victims restitution when the courts convicted traffickers; victims could also file civil suits with the support of a government attorney to obtain compensation. Prosecutors did not routinely seek restitution on victims’ behalf and courts did not order restitution payment to any victims in 2023, compared with ordering payments to two victims in 2022.

The government maintained prevention efforts. The Directorate for the Attention of the Overseas Paraguayan Community (DACPE) was the government entity responsible for coordinating anti-trafficking programs and convening an ongoing interagency roundtable that included intermittent participation from 16 government agencies. In 2023, the roundtable held four sessions, compared with five in 2022. Law 4788/12 did not require participation of civil society in the roundtable, and authorities provided such stakeholders a limited, non-voting role. Although the roundtable’s plenary sessions were officially open to civil society, and two NGOs served as liaisons between the roundtable and civil society, some NGOs reported they did not receive consistent notification of meetings. Poor and informal interagency coordination continued to limit the government’s ability to monitor, collect, and report statistics.

The 2020-2024 NAP guided the government’s anti-trafficking efforts. However, officials reported poor coordination, internal disputes, and funding limitations hindered efforts to implement the plan, including a measure to establish the dedicated national anti-trafficking secretariat mandated under Law 4788/12. Observers reported that the absence of such a dedicated anti-trafficking secretariat continued to limit the effectiveness of the government’s anti-trafficking efforts. Law 4788/12 also required the government to have an anti-trafficking fund, but the government had not created the account – the intended funding source for the plan’s implementation. Officials expressed concern that the lack of dedicated funding constituted a significant obstacle to anti-trafficking efforts.

The government supported some awareness initiatives, but it largely relied on civil society, businesses, and trade unions to run trafficking awareness campaigns. Awareness materials developed by the government were available in Spanish, Guarani, and braille. The government maintained hotlines to report crimes against women and children, including trafficking, as well as a webpage for filing complaints about trafficking and other crimes; it did not report the number of trafficking-related reports received via these means.

The Ministry of Labor’s 14 labor inspectors could refer trafficking victims to services through the interagency roundtable and previously received training to identify trafficking victims during inspections, but inspectors did not refer any victims to the roundtable or cases to the ATU in 2023. Inspectors conducted 795 on-site labor inspections in 2023, identifying three child labor violations, some of which may have amounted to trafficking. The Ministry of Labor imposed fines for violations in two of these cases. Observers noted the monetary fines commonly levied against employers for child labor violations were insufficient to discourage the practice. The government remained without effective approaches to tackling the abusive practices and working conditions common in situations of criadazgo. The government did not make efforts to reduce the demand for commercial sex acts. The government continued to grant certifications to hotels and other tourism-sector companies that complied with certain anti-trafficking measures; however, it did not typically identify or investigate reports of foreign citizens engaging in commercial sex acts with children as potential extraterritorial commercial child sexual exploitation or trafficking crimes. The government reported a new effort to train diplomatic staff to prevent their participation or facilitation of human trafficking, and to recognize trafficking indicators in a consular setting.

As reported over the past five years, human traffickers exploit domestic and foreign victims in Paraguay, and traffickers exploit victims from Paraguay abroad. Government reporting indicates many Paraguayans exploited in trafficking abroad hail from the departments of Alto Parana, Caaguazu, and Central. The practice of compelling children to labor as domestic workers, criadazgo, is a common form of trafficking in the country. Middle- and upper-income families in urban and rural areas take on children, almost exclusively from impoverished families, as domestic workers and provide varying compensation that may include room, board, money, a small stipend, or access to educational opportunities. An estimated 47,000 Paraguayan children work in situations of criadazgo; many of these children are highly vulnerable to sex and labor trafficking. Although the practice mainly affects young girls, boys represent 30 percent of children in criadazgo. Traffickers exploit children and adults from rural areas in sex trafficking and forced labor in urban centers. Trafficking cases, especially cases of child sex trafficking, often involve a familial trafficker. Boys are often victims of forced labor in agriculture, domestic service, and criminality. Children engaged in street vending, begging, mining, brick making, and ranching are vulnerable to trafficking. Traffickers exploit Paraguayan children in forced labor in the cultivation and sale of illicit drugs; they may also leverage potential victims’ drug dependency to facilitate exploitation. Traffickers also recruit Paraguayan women to transport illicit drugs across international borders and may subsequently subject them to sex trafficking. In the Chaco region, traffickers exploit adults and children in debt bondage.

Traffickers increasingly utilize social media to recruit victims and sometimes use threats of disseminating victims’ intimate content online as a means of coercion. Indigenous adults and children are particularly vulnerable to trafficking. Traffickers exploit Paraguayan women, girls, and boys in sex trafficking within the country, including aboard vessels navigating the country’s major waterways. Transgender Paraguayans are vulnerable to sex trafficking. Paraguayan victims of sex trafficking and forced labor have been identified in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, the PRC, Colombia, Italy, Germany, Spain, and other countries. Traffickers move female trafficking victims regionally and to Europe via transit countries including Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, and Spain. Traffickers operate in small, localized groups, and may recruit and exploit victims in coordination with similar groups abroad. Foreign victims of sex and labor trafficking in Paraguay are mostly from other South American countries. The lack of regulatory measures and insufficient transnational cooperation, combined with numerous unofficial border crossings, contribute to increased trafficking risk in and around the Tri-Border Area between Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay. Civil society and victims alleged some officials – including police, border guards, judges, and public registry employees – facilitated sex trafficking by taking bribes from brothel owners in exchange for protection, extorting suspected traffickers to prevent arrest, or producing fraudulent identity documents.