US cites 10 nations in human trafficking report
WASHINGTON, June 14 (Reuters) – The United States on Monday accused 10 nations, including Venezuela, Bangladesh and Sudan, of not doing enough to stop the trafficking of thousands of people forced into servitude or the sex trade every year.
Secretary of State Colin Powell estimated that 600,000 to 800,000 people, mostly women and children, are trafficked internationally each year and called this a “kind of evil.”
“We’re talking about women and girls as young as 6 years old trafficked into commercial sexual exploitation, men trafficked into forced labor, children trafficked as child soldiers,” Powell said as he presented the State Department’s annual “Trafficking in Persons Report.”
He described an 11-year-old girl taken from the hills of Laos to an embroidery factory where she was forced to work 14 hours a day and, when she protested, beaten, stuffed into a closet and doused with chemicals that disfigured her.
Powell also said trafficking was “a global security threat, because profits from trafficking finance still more crime and violence, including very likely terrorist violence” but offered no specific evidence that it fuels terrorism.
The ten nations — Bangladesh, Burma, Cuba, Ecuador, Equatorial Guinea, Guyana, North Korea, Sierra Leone, Sudan and Venezuela — may all be subject to sanctions, including the withholding of U.S. aid that is not for humanitarian or trade purposes. The president has the right to waive sanctions
The State Department said the 10 nations on its lowest, “Tier 3,” list that may face sanctions “do not fully comply with the minimum standards (laid down by U.S. law) and are not making significant efforts to do so.”
The minimum standards include prohibiting severe forms of trafficking and punishing such acts; prescribing punishments commensurate with the crimes; and making “serious and sustained efforts” to eliminate such trafficking. The president has the right to waive sanctions if he deems it justified.
The report said Bangladesh failed to make “significant efforts to prosecute traffickers and address the complicity of government officials.” It said law enforcement and prevention efforts are “nonexistent” in Sudan and said Venezuela failed to devote “serious attention or resources” to fight trafficking.
The report also placed 42 nations — among them Japan, Russia, Greece, Turkey and Cyprus — on a “Tier 2 watch list” list of countries that require “special scrutiny” and could fall into the bottom category. Only 25 nations — chiefly in Western Europe — are deemed to meet the U.S. standards.