Trafficking Victims Protection Act

TTRAFFICKINGRAFFICKING ININ PPERSONSERSONS RREPORTEPORT JJUNEUNE 20052005 INTRODUCTION Dear Reader: In his 2005 inaugural address, President Bush gave renewed voice to the hopes and dreams of people around the world who seek lives of freedom. He said, “America will not pretend that the jailed dissidents prefer their chains, or that women welcome humiliation and servitude, or that any human being aspires to live at the mercy of bullies.” Yet for millions of people entrapped each year in vicious schemes of labor and sex trafficking, freedom is denied. These trafficking victims are deprived of their most basic human rights and fall into modern-day slavery. President Bush, the Congress, and the American people are united in efforts to eradicate trafficking in persons internationally and within national borders because this global crime opposes the universal value of freedom. This fifth annual Trafficking in Persons Report, along with the $82 million [revised to correct previously posted figure of $96 million] in anti-trafficking assistance our nation provided to foreign governments and non-government organizations last year, demonstrates our strong commitment to this cause. This year, we included more country analyses as a result of deeper research and a wider range of sources. We also expanded our coverage of labor slavery, especially internal labor trafficking. Forced labor and involuntary servitude are appallingly common, including whole villages working to pay off old debts passed down through generations. The TIP Report serves to expose these despicable aspects of trafficking. It provokes, lauds, and challenges. Countries including the United States, which is dealing with its own trafficking problem, have been inspired to greater action against human trafficking as a result of this unique compendium. By reading it, we hope you are joining with us in the abolitionist movement of the 21st century to advance freedom for the world’s most vulnerable citizens. Sincerely, Condoleezza Rice South Asian girl peers through the loom that is the instrument of her exploitation. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION I. INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................5 The 2005 Trafficking in Persons Report: Its Purpose ......................................5 The Common Thread of Servitude......................................................................9 “Trafficking in Persons” Defined.....................................................................10 The Human and Societal Costs of Trafficking..................................................12 The Human Rights Dimension.................................................................13 Promoting Social Breakdown...................................................................13 Fueling Organized Crime .........................................................................13 Depriving Countries of Human Capital and Inhibiting Development.......14 Public Health Costs.................................................................................14 Erosion of Government Authority .............................................................14 The Methods of Traffickers .............................................................................15 The Myriad Causes of Trafficking ....................................................................17 Effective Strategies in Combating Trafficking ................................................20 More About the 2005 TIP Report......................................................................25 What the Report Is and Is Not .................................................................25 The Special Watch List: Tier 2 Watch List ...............................................26 Why This Year’s Report Contains More Country Assessments..................28 How the Report Is Used ...........................................................................29 Methodology ............................................................................................29 Step One: Significant Number of Victims ................................................30 Step Two: Tier Placement.........................................................................30 Potential Penalties for Tier 3 Countries...................................................31 II. INTERNATIONAL BEST PRACTICES .........................................................................33 Heroes Acting to End Modern-Day Slavery ......................................................38 III. TIER PLACEMENTS ................................................................................................42 IV. MAPS (WITH REGIONAL LAW ENFORCEMENT STATISTICS).......................................43 V. COUNTRY NARRATIVES (A to Z) .............................................................................51 VI. SPECIAL CASES...................................................................................................232 VII. UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT EFFORTS...............................................................239 VIII. INTERNATIONAL CONVENTIONS–MATRIX ..............................................................248 IX. TRAFFICKING VICTIMS PROTECTION ACT.............................................................252 X. GLOSSARY OF ACRONYMS ...................................................................................254 This Report and subsequent updates are available at www.state.gov/g/tip 3 VICTIM PROFILES The victims’ testimonies included in the report are meant to be representative only and do not include all forms of trafficking that occur. Any of these stories could unfortunately take place almost anywhere in the world. They are provided to illustrate the many forms of trafficking and the wide variety of places in which they take place. No country is immune. All names of victims that appear in this report are fictional. The photographs on this Report’s cover and most uncaptioned photographs in the Report are not images of confirmed trafficking victims, but are provided to show the myriad forms of exploitation that help define trafficking and the variety of cultures in which trafficking victims can be found. INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION CENTRAL AFRICA: Mary, a 16-year-old demobilized child soldier forced to join an armed rebel group in central Africa, remembers: “I feel so bad about the things that I did. It disturbs me so much that I inflicted death on other people. When I go home I must do some traditional rites because I have killed. I must perform these rites and cleanse myself. I still dream about the boy from my village whom I killed. I see him in my dreams, and he is talking to me, saying I killed him for nothing, and I am crying.” The 2005 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report: tion of trafficking in persons receives a nega- Its Purpose tive “Tier 3” assessment in this Report. Such The Department of State is required by law to an assessment could trigger the withholding submit a report each year to the U.S. Congress of non-humanitarian, non-trade-related assis- on foreign governments’ efforts to eliminate tance from the United States to that country. severe forms of trafficking in persons. This In assessing foreign governments’ efforts, Report is the fifth annual TIP Report. the TIP Report highlights the “three P’s” — This Report is intended to raise global prosecution, protection, and prevention. But a awareness and spur foreign governments to victim-centered approach to trafficking take effective actions to counter all forms of requires us equally to address the “three R’s” trafficking in persons — a form of modern- — rescue, rehabilitation, and reintegration. day slavery. The Report has increasingly The law that guides these efforts, the focused the efforts of a growing community Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 of nations to share information and to partner (TVPA), makes clear from its first sentence in new and important ways to fight human that the purpose of combating human traffick- trafficking. A country that fails to take signif- ing is to ensure just and effective punishment icant actions to bring itself into compliance of traffickers, to protect their victims, and to with the minimum standards for the elimina- prevent trafficking. Young Indian boy forced to weave saris. 5 Members of Northern Thailand’s hill tribes, many of whom do not have formal citizenship or residency, are vulnerable to trafficking. More than 140 years ago, the United States gated transnational trafficking in persons by age fought a devastating war to rid our country of and gender for the first time. These data slavery, and to prevent those who supported it showed that, of the estimated 600,000 to from dividing the nation. Although the vast 800,000 men, women, and children trafficked majority of nations succeeded in eliminating across international borders each year, approxi- the state-sanctioned practice, a modern form mately 80 percent are women and girls and up of human slavery has emerged as a growing to 50 percent are minors. The data also illus- global threat to the lives and freedom of mil- trate that the majority of transnational victims lions of men, women, and children. Today, are trafficked into commercial sexual exploita- slavery is rarely state-sponsored. Instead, tion. With a focus on transnational trafficking human trafficking often involves organized in persons, however, these data fail to include crime groups who make huge sums of money millions of victims around the

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