further endangering trafficking victims and other vulnerable between low-level police officers and traffickers, particularly TAIWAN populations that remained in the country. regarding the trafficking of women in prostitution; during the last year, there was no evidence that the government addressed complicity through investigations. :@90(;0,99(5205.)@@,(9 Protection The government made no discernible efforts to identify and protect victims of trafficking during the reporting period. By the end of the reporting period, IOM had identified at least 95 Filipina domestic workers believed to be trafficking victims trapped in Hama and Homs, cities experiencing extreme Recommendations for Syria: Implement the comprehensive violence at the hands of the government. While the Philippine anti-trafficking law through increased investigations and embassy attempted to negotiate with the employers of the prosecutions of trafficking offenders; provide training on domestic workers for their release, there were no reports that human trafficking to police, immigration officials, labor, and the Government of Syria assisted the embassy in these efforts social welfare officials, including those assigned to the anti- to identify and protect the workers, including possible victims trafficking directorate; ensure that the anti-trafficking of domestic servitude. In contrast with the previous reporting directorate is fully operational, continue to assign a significant period, the government did not refer any trafficking victims to number of female police officers to the directorate, and provide NGO-operated shelters. The government also failed to institute specific training on how to receive cases and interview potential any systematic procedures for the identification, interview, and trafficking victims with appropriate sensitivity; launch a referral of trafficking victims. As a result, victims of trafficking nationwide anti-trafficking public awareness campaign, may have been arrested and charged with prostitution or particularly highlighting the appropriate treatment of domestic violating immigration laws before being deported or punished. workers under Syrian law; establish policies and procedures The government neither encouraged victims to assist in for law enforcement officials to proactively identify and investigations or prosecutions of their traffickers nor provided interview potential trafficking victims, and transfer them to foreign victims with legal alternatives to their removal to the care of relevant organizations; and designate an official countries in which they may face hardship or retribution. coordinating body or mechanism to facilitate anti-trafficking communication and coordination among the relevant ministries, law enforcement entities, international organizations, and Prevention NGOs. During the past year, the government made minimal efforts to prevent trafficking or to substantially raise awareness among the general public or government officials. In collaboration Prosecution with IOM, the government launched a one-week media The government made limited progress in addressing human campaign in mid-2011 that included posters, radio spots, and trafficking through law enforcement measures during the television public service announcements on trafficking issues; reporting period. Inadequate law enforcement training however, most of the population continues to have little or remained a significant impediment to identifying and no awareness of human trafficking, and the issue remained a prosecuting trafficking crimes in Syria. Moreover, the significant taboo topic. In mid-2011, the anti-trafficking unit established unrest during the reporting period substantially hindered and operated a hotline for reporting suspected cases of human any anti-trafficking law enforcement efforts. In June 2011, trafficking and attempted to circulate it through brochures and the Syrian government issued an executive order outlining posters throughout major cities. The government provided no the implementation of its comprehensive anti-trafficking law, information on the number of calls the hotline received or Decree No. 3, which provides a legal foundation for prosecuting investigations that may have resulted from hotline assistance. trafficking offenses and protecting victims, but does not provide The status of the government’s national plan of action against a clear definition of human trafficking. This law prescribes trafficking, which was drafted in early 2010, is unknown. The a minimum punishment of seven years’ imprisonment, a government did not make efforts to reduce the demand for penalty that is sufficiently stringent though not commensurate commercial sex acts. Syria is not a party to the 2000 UN TIP with those prescribed for other serious crimes, such as rape. Protocol. Some activities continued as part of the Ministry of Interior’s 200-person specialized anti-trafficking directorate, which was tasked in 2010 with investigating cases, raising public awareness, TAIWAN (Tier 1) cooperating with foreign entities, training law enforcement, and tracking and annually reporting on the government’s Taiwan is a destination, and to a much lesser extent, source and anti-trafficking efforts. While this anti-trafficking directorate transit territory for men, women, and children subjected to sex carried out some of these tasks and reportedly hired some trafficking and forced labor. Most trafficking victims in Taiwan female officers during the reporting period, the directorate are migrant workers from Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, did not have a coordination role and it is unknown whether mainland China, Cambodia, the Philippines, Bangladesh, and it was fully operational in 2011. Moreover, the directorate India, employed through recruitment agencies and brokers provided no information on its investigations or prosecutions to perform low-skilled work in Taiwan’s manufacturing and of suspected trafficking offenses. In June 2011, the Ministry of fishing industries, and as home caregivers and domestic the Interior issued a memorandum that was disseminated to workers. Many of these workers fall victim to labor trafficking all police stations, which mandated the referral of potential by unscrupulous brokers and employers, who force workers cases to the government’s anti-trafficking directorate. In the to perform work outside the scope of their contract and often previous reporting period, there were reports of collusion 333 under exploitative conditions. Some employers of the estimated forced labor, and prescribes penalties of up to seven years’ 200,000 foreign domestic workers and home caregivers forbid imprisonment; these penalties are sufficiently stringent and their employees from leaving their residences, except on days commensurate with those prescribed for other serious crimes, off, making them extremely vulnerable to labor trafficking and such as rape. The Labor Standards Law, which also prohibits other abuses and unable to seek help. Some women and girls forced labor, does not apply to workers employed as private from China and Southeast Asian countries are lured to Taiwan nursing caregivers and domestic workers – which include TAIWAN through fraudulent marriages and deceptive employment an unknown number of Taiwan nationals and the nearly offers for purposes of sex trafficking and forced labor. Migrant 200,000 foreign nationals – comprising approximately half workers are reportedly charged up to the equivalent of $7,700 of Taiwan’s migrant workforce. During the reporting period, in recruitment fees, typically in their home countries, resulting however, the authorities drafted new legislation that would in substantial debts that may be used by brokers or employers extend legal protections to all categories of workers, including as tools of coercion to obtain or maintain a migrant’s labor. domestic workers and caregivers. In 2011, Taiwan authorities Labor brokers often assist employers in forcibly deporting convicted 113 people for sex trafficking and 51 people for “problematic” employees, thus allowing the broker to fill forced labor under the HTPCA, an increase from 44 sex the empty quota with new foreign workers who must pay trafficking convictions and 43 labor trafficking convictions brokerage fees, which may be used to maintain them in a achieved under the HTPCA in 2010. Sentences imposed on situation of forced labor. Brokers used threats, confinement, trafficking offenders are generally sufficiently stringent. In and the confiscation of travel documents as a means to control November 2011, the former director of the Taipei Economic workers. Some women from Taiwan are recruited through and Cultural Office in Kansas City, Missouri pled guilty classified ads for employment in Japan, Australia, the UK, to labor fraud in the United States for subjecting her two and the United States; after their arrival in these countries, domestic workers to conditions of forced labor, including they are forced into prostitution. Taiwan is a transit territory withholding their passports and paying inadequate wages. She for Chinese citizens who enter the United States illegally and spent approximately four months in jail in the United States may become victims of debt bondage and forced prostitution before being deported to Taiwan in February 2012, where she in the United States. Taiwan authorities fully comply with was impeached by Taiwan authorities in April 2012; however, the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking. a final decision regarding