36th Session, November 3, 2020
As Delivered by Sean Garcia
The United States welcomes the delegation from Panama to the UPR Working Group.
We recommend that Panama:
1. Enact reforms to decrease corruption, improve transparency and accountability, and hold to account those security forces responsible for abuses.
2. Promote freedom of expression, including for members of the media and civil society, by enacting laws that prohibit the use of lawsuits to deter whistleblowers from revealing wrongdoing.
3. Amend the trafficking in persons definition to include force, fraud and coercion while removing the requirement of movement from the statutory definition under the criminal code.
We commend Panama’s continued commitment to the promotion of human rights, both domestically and internationally. Improvements can still be made to prison conditions and combatting forced child labor.