CV NEWS FEED // On July 9, the 2024 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report, released June 24, was discussed in an open congressional hearing of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Subcommittee on Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations.
The TIP report is an annual publication from the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons in the U.S. Department of State. It assesses efforts governments worldwide make to combat human trafficking. The report ranks countries in tiers based on their compliance with the minimum standards outlined in the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA):
- Tier 1: Countries whose governments fully comply with the TVPA’s minimum standards.
- Tier 2: Countries whose governments do not fully comply with the TVPA’s minimum standards but are making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance.
- Tier 2 Watch List: Countries on Tier 2 that are making significant efforts but have severe forms of trafficking, a failure to provide evidence of increasing efforts, or where the determination that they are making significant efforts is based on commitments to take future steps.
- Tier 3: Countries whose governments do not fully comply with the minimum standards and are not making significant efforts to do so.
Congressman Christopher Smith (R-NJ), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations, and author of the historic TVPA of 2000, opened the July 9 hearing by informing listeners that there are an estimated 28 million people enslaved in labor or sex trafficking.
Smith explained that the TIP report is essential for urging governments to reform their laws, prosecute traffickers, and take strong measures against trafficking. The report’s effectiveness relies on judging governments strictly based on their efforts to combat human trafficking.
“Political considerations cannot seep into the report,” he went on. “In the past there were ambassadors, assistant secretaries, and others, who fought hard to keep their country off the Tier 3 rating. That’s totally unacceptable. That sells out the victims.”
Smith went on to state his agreement with this year’s TIP report showing the world’s top violators of human rights such as China, Cuba, North Korea, Iran, Belarus, Russia, and Nicaragua, which remained ranked in Tier 3.
Additionally, Smith expressed appreciation that the 2024 TIP report highlighted the role Cuba and China in particular have played in state-sponsored forced labor. He requested that countries that participate by purchasing said forced labor also be ranked accordingly.
He also stated his agreement with the downgrade of Laos to Tier 2 Watchlist, in part due to the rapidly emerging human trafficking threat in Southeast Asia, where Chinese transnational organized crime syndicates operate scam centers.
The Congressman from New Jersey explained that these criminals traffic innocent people worldwide using fake job ads, trapping them in prison-like compounds with armed guards and barbed wire. Victims are forced to work in these compounds conducting elaborate online cryptocurrency scams known as “pig butchery.” They communicate with unsuspecting victims, including Americans, via WhatsApp or phone, building trust and convincing them to invest in fraudulent crypto platforms. Once the money is deposited, the scammers withdraw and disappear. Estimates of money stolen from Americans through these scams are now over $3.5 billion.
Smith emphasized that this is a double crime; the criminals destroy lives by robbing innocent people in the U.S. of their life savings and, at the same time, destroy the lives of people in Southeast Asia, who become victims of trafficking.
These scam centers are primarily found not only in Laos, but also in Burma and Cambodia, which are both Tier 3 countries. Smith also called out the neighboring countries of Thailand, Singapore, and Vietnam for doing little to combat these crimes.
Smith concluded by highlighting “a disturbing ideological trend:” the push by some organizations to normalize and legalize prostitution, using terms like “sex work” and “intergenerational sexual partnerships.”
According to him, these efforts attempt to normalize sex trafficking and the sexual exploitation of children, contrary to the TVPA’s clear definitions and protections.
Rep. Susan Wild, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations, stated, “The release of the 2024 Trafficking in Persons report is an opportunity to take stock of the progress we’ve made, and the enormous amount of work that remains to be done.”
Wild continued to emphasize the need to report on countries consistently, without yielding to political pressure or geopolitical considerations, and to be willing to challenge powerful interests, including highly profitable corporations that benefit from the appalling reality of child labor.
According to the Honorable Cindy Dyer, Ambassador-at-Large to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, this year’s TIP report includes 19 downgrades. Seventeen countries downgraded from Tier 2 to the Tier 2 Watch List, including Hong Kong, Laos, Malta, Rwanda, and Uruguay. Brunei and Sudan were downgraded to Tier 3.
On the other hand, 22 countries saw their rankings improve. Notably, the Republic of Korea, Poland, and Surinam were upgraded to Tier 1, while Bolivia, Botswana, Bulgaria, Egypt, Malaysia, South Africa, and Vietnam were upgraded from Tier 3 to Tier 2.
Dyer continued to explain that the 2024 TIP report documents several continuing and emerging global trends. Forced labor within Cuba’s medical missions continues to be tracked across 53 countries, as well as China’s Belt and Road Initiative and other China-affiliated projects in 32 countries. Additionally, workers in North Korea are exploited abroad in 19 countries.
The report newly documents that Russian authorities, middlemen, private military companies, or Russian-affiliated forces use coercion, deception, and sometimes force to recruit foreign nationals—particularly Central and South Asian migrants, as well as citizens from Cuba and Syria—as fighters in support of Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine.
The report also highlights the continued growth of online scam operations, with scam centers emerging in new regions and victims recruited from an expanding list of source countries.
In addition to outlining steps governments are proactively undertaking to combat trafficking, the 2024 TIP report also implicates additional governments in perpetrating the crime itself with a policy or pattern of trafficking. This includes 13 countries, with Belarus added back to the list and Sudan newly added, alongside 11 countries that have remained on the list, including Cuba, North Korea, China, and Russia.
This year’s TIP report also examines the role of digital technology in the fight against human trafficking and highlights how traffickers use this technology to perpetuate and facilitate human trafficking.
However, it also explains how digital technology can be effectively used by the anti-trafficking community to monitor and combat this heinous crime, through dissemination of information to prevent trafficking and assist victims, and empowering law enforcement to uncover a digital trail and bring perpetrators to justice.
According to Dyer, “Addressing human trafficking in today’s world requires an understanding and use of digital technology to uncover evidence of trafficking, protect victims, prosecute perpetrators, and ideally prevent this crime.”
Other topics of special interest in the 2024 TIP report Dyer mentioned included forced marriage, trafficking in persons for the purpose of organ removal, the intersection between trafficking and persons with disabilities, and the importance of survivor input and leadership.
