According to this article, there are close to two dozen countries around the world who are not doing enough to fight human trafficking. In the "Trafficking in Persons Report" put out by the U.S. State Department, it is reported that the number of countries facing U.S. sanctions for not doing enough to tackle the problem of human trafficking has nearly doubled. The conditions in 184 countries, including the United States, were analyzed. There were 23 U.S. states which failed to meet minimum international standards for combating human trafficking. This number is up from 13 in 2010. The article reports that as many as 27 million men, women, and children are victims of human trafficking. Some of the countries placed on the blacklist include Cuba, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Zimbabwe, and Sudan. The country of Turkmenistan was added to the list this year. Men and women in this country are reported being subjected to forced labor and forced prostitution. Iran was also said to be a "source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to sex trafficking and forced labor." Iranian women and Afghan children in Iran are being trafficked internally for commercial exploitation and sometimes for forced marriages. In southern Iran, there are male brothels where young men and Afghan boys are forced into prostitution. Iranian women and children are also victims of sex trafficking in places such as Pakistan, Turkey, Kuwait, Iraq, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, etc. The Iranian government was also faulted in the U.S. report for doing so little to protect trafficking victims. Iran prefers to deport foreign victims of trafficking rather than protect them.
The report from the U.S. State Department said that these countries that are not doing enough to fight human trafficking "may" face U.S. sanctions. It seems to me that there should be no "may" about it. Don't make a threat of sanctions and then fail to follow through. These countries don't seemed to be very interested in fighting the problem of human trafficking as it is. Foreign governments and law enforcement as well as our own government and law enforcement agencies here in the United States need to be made to understand the atrocities of human trafficking. I understand it is a huge global problem which is hard to combat because of the money involved and the reluctance of many to become involved in fighting it, but to blatantly ignore it or back down from imposing punishment on known perpetrators or those supporting it, is committing a great injustice to all the victims.
http://www.rferl.org/content/estonia_belarus_russia_on_us_human_trafficking_watch_list/24248408.html
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