The US Department of State has placed the Philippines on Tier 2 “watch list” status for the fifth straight year in its global Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report, citing the “pervasive corruption” in the government that undermines efforts to eliminate trafficking.
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“Afghanistan is a source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to forced labor and sex trafficking”, the report states.
PNG which was has been at the lowest “Tier 3” level since 2008 has moved up a rank, with some steps found to have been taken to prevent human trafficking. I call on all countries to fight money laundering and sign and ratify the UN Conventions against corruption and transnational organised crime, including the latter’s human trafficking protocol.
The recomamendations to the Macau Government are increased efforts to investigate, prosecute and convict sex and labour traffickers, improvement in the implementation of proactive victim identification methods, the education of authorities and the population about forced labor and sex trafficking, conducting of sex trafficking awareness campaigns for visitors, and finally a survey of the migrant labour population to identify its vulnerability to trafficking. The report delves into the major gaps and discrepancies in the law – focusing on the lack of oversight of the police during bar and nightclub raids – stating that proper screening of women for trafficking indicators or signs is not done. “This upgrade is more about the TPP and US trade politics than anything Malaysia did to combat human trafficking”, the group said.
“There were allegations police and other officials accepted bribes to permit brothels to operate; some of the brothels exploited trafficking victims”.
The Jamaican government has rejected the country’s ranking in the 2015 Trafficking in Persons Report by the U.S., claiming its conclusion is “perplexing” and “unfoundded”. It said both countries are making progress in battling sex trafficking and various forms of forced labor.
The government failed to make adequate efforts to identify and protect trafficking victims and did not adopt or implement the standard operating procedures for assisting victims proposed by the Anti-Human Trafficking Task Force, which have been pending since 2010. As such, the State Department’s new report will demand that governments around the world recognize the illegality of abusing human rights in their own countries.
However the report said the government did not have other specialized care available to female trafficking victims and did not have any specialized care services at all for male victims. Four victims told of how they had been lured to Scotland with the promise of work and then “held captive” by unscrupulous employers who “wreaked their lives”.
Romanian law permits foreign victims a 90-day reflection period, though experts reported this was not always respected in practice.
Responding to this, the justice ministry pointed out that the report gave no specific cases of any child-trafficking victim who was never identified.
Arie told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday that investigations into 190 out of 312 human trafficking cases had been completed and were handed over to the AGO in 2014.
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The minister said the report is important because of the assistance Jamaica gets from the U.S.
