2021 Trafficking in Persons Report

Trafficking in Persons report 2021 was recently released by US State Department. As per the report, Covid-19 pandemic has increased vulnerability to human trafficking and interrupted existing anti-traffic efforts.

Key Findings of report

• According to the report, India did not meet minimum standards of eliminating trafficking. However, government made significant efforts, though these were inadequate especially with respect to bonded labour.
• Chinese government was engaged in forced labour, including through mass arbitrary detention of Uyghurs, ethnic Kazakhs, ethnic Kyrgyz, and other Muslims.
• Concurrence of increased number of individuals at risk, traffickers’ ability to capitalise on competing crises, and diversion of resources to Covid-19 pandemic response efforts made ideal environment for human trafficking.
• Countries were not categorised on the basis of magnitude of country’s trafficking problem but on the basis of efforts they made to meet minimum standards of eliminating of human trafficking.

Three-tier system

Countries were designated on the basis of three-tier system:

1. Tier 1 countries- Countries where governments completely comply with minimum standards of Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA). TVPA is US’s law on human trafficking. USA, UK, Australia, Bahrain and South Korea are tier 1 countries.
2. Tier 2 countries– Countries whose governments do not comply with TVPA’s minimum standards completely. However, they are making efforts to comply with those standards. India is in this category.
3. Tier 3 countries– Countries where governments do not comply with minimum standards of TVPA and are not making significant efforts for same. Afghanistan, China, Burma, North Korea, Cuba, Eritrea, South Sudan, Iran, Russia, Syria and Turkmenistan are under this category.
4. Special Case– There are some “Special Cases” like Yemen where civil conflict and humanitarian crisis makes it difficult to gain information.

Month: Current Affairs - July, 2021