US urges action on human trafficking
The United States government has issued a third annual report into global people trafficking, and has called for wider global co-operation on the problem.
Colin Powell unveiled the report that suggests there may be as many as 900,000 victims of people trafficking each year, with 20,000 of these heading for the USA alone.
He highlighted the ‘dehumanizing and dangerous conditions’ to which those trafficked are often subjected to, and he raised the examples of children being forced into prostitution or soldiering.
The report also takes the opportunity to commend those governments around the world that the USA deems is making efforts to help solve the problem, although this area has caused controversy about the efforts that countries have made.
While the report divides countries into tiers that indicate the level of efforts undertaken, some claim these are poorly defined and should be re-evaluated to take greater account of legislative action and performance, as well as consideration of how victims are treated.
There is also concern among human rights groups that some countries have been graded on the basis of political good or ill will rather than on their commitment to cut the trade, amid claims that Japan, which is graded highly, has no specific policy prohibiting trafficking, and has some immigration laws that encourage it.
Likewise tier two contains countries with such different records as to make the tier impractical as a gauge for a country’s commitment, Human Rights Watch maintains, leading to calls for greater consideration of quantifiable issues such as whether a country punishes victims or has relevant legislation.
The 15 countries that came in for greatest criticism are those that the USA government deems to have made no efforts to resolve the problem of people trafficking. These are Belize, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Georgia, Greece, Haiti, Kazakhstan, Liberia, Myanmar, North Korea, Sudan, Suriname, Turkey and Uzbekistan.
