The United States, in an effort to combat human trafficking, releases a Trafficking in Persons Report each year. Ever since Congress passed the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, each year, a report has been presented to the US Congress by the Department of State, and allows Congress to set penalties to countries that don’t make efforts to curb trafficking. Each country is placed in a Tier, based on their efforts to reduce trafficking, and the level of trafficking present. There are three Tiers, and countries that fall into the third tier may have embargos set against them.
Many countries are becoming aware of human trafficking, but not all strive to fix this problem. The Department of State evaluates countries based on three factors; prosecution, protection, and prevention. Countries that make efforts to prosecute traffickers, and offer protection to victims are put in Tier 2. Tier 2 countries include Japan, Brazil, Vietnam, and Thailand. Though these countries have a lot of trafficking, they have made great efforts to reduce trafficking.
Tier 3 countries, on the other hand, are countries that make no noticeable efforts to stop trafficking. Tier 3 countries face sanctions and embargos. In addition, the United States reduces aid, like in the case of Sudan, in 2003. Compared to other developed countries, the United States has made giant leaps towards helping to curb human trafficking.
However, the United States itself has trafficking issues. An estimated 14,500 people get trafficked into the United States each year. Mostly, this trafficking is that of prostitutes, but there are many laborers being trafficked into the US as well. Putting pressure on the international community about this issue is appropriate, but we must also focus on eradicating human trafficking completely in our own country.
It gets me really mad when I read that that a lot of countries are trying to fix this pandemic, but not all. Its truly horrid that this activity is still happening and even I really wish there was a global stop to it.
ReplyDeleteIt's good to know that Congress has passed this legislation and taken a stand against Human Trafficking. Hopefully the UN can find a better solution as well.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Lacey once again. It is good that we are headed in the right direction but I cannot be fully happy until a final halt is put to this.
ReplyDeleteOh chyeahh, just stop offering aid to Sudan. I'm sure all the crippled, starving, homeless, or otherwise dying victims of the Darfur conflict and other miscellaneous by-products of living in a place as horrible as Sudan are thankful.
ReplyDeleteI think this is an unintentional display of poor American efforts to stop world issues, once again. At least that's how I interpret it.
ReplyDeleteNo matter how many billions of dollars we put into researching this stuff, we still have a global notoriety of being lazy and stupid.
Sadly, outside of the RPS and even suburbia "bubble," that's really the truth for the most part.