Trafficking in Persons and U.S. Foreign Policy Responses in the 114th Congress Page: 4 of 21
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Trafficking in Persons and U.S. Foreign Policy Responses in the 114th Congress
Global Trends
Trafficking in persons, or human trafficking, refers to the subjection of men, women, and children
to compelled service for the purposes of exploitation.1 Examples of human trafficking include
trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation, including child sexual exploitation; forced labor,
including bonded labor, involuntary domestic servitude, and forced child labor; and the unlawful
recruitment and use of child soldiers. Reports suggest that human trafficking is a global
phenomenon, victimizing millions of people and contributing to a multi-billion dollar criminal
industry. It is a centuries-old problem that, despite international efforts, continues to occur in
virtually every country in the world.
On June 30, 2016, the State Department released its latest edition of the flagship annual U.S.
publication on international human trafficking, the Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report, discussed
further in the "State Department Reporting Requirements" section below. Briefly, the TIP Report
categorized 185 countries, including the United States, into four tiers, based on their respective
governments' level of effort to address human trafficking: Tier 1 (best), Tier 2, Tier 2 Watch List,
and Tier 3 (worst). An additional three countries were designated as "Special Cases" without a
tier ranking because of political instability and the inability to obtain relevant government
information.
Only Tier 1 countries, approximately 19.5% of the countries assessed, were fully compliant with
U.S.-established minimum standards to eliminate severe forms of human trafficking; the rest were
considered noncompliant and varied in terms of their level of effort to improve. Among the least
compliant were the 27 countries identified as Tier 3 in the 2016 TIP Report, including 8 that had
previously been Tier 2 Watch List: Burma, Djibouti, Haiti, Papua New Guinea, Sudan, Suriname,
Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. As required by law, Tier 3 countries are subjected to selected
foreign assistance restrictions, unless the President determines that continuing to provide aid is in
the U.S. national interest.
The nongovernmental organization Walk Free Foundation also provided a global evaluation of
human trafficking trends in its 2016 Global Slavery Index report. 2 The 2016 Global Slavery Index
report estimated that some 45.8 million (up from 35.8 million estimated in 2014) individuals
worldwide were exploited through human trafficking, forced labor, debt bondage, forced or
servile marriage, or commercial sexual exploitation. In contrast to the TIP Report, which
categorizes countries solely on the basis of government efforts, the Global Slavery Index also
seeks to provide country-by-country estimates of people experiencing conditions tantamount to
modern slavery. For example, the 2016 Global Slavery Index reported the following:
" Countries with the greatest prevalence of their population subjected to "modern
slavery" included North Korea (for comparison, the State Department listed
North Korea as Tier 3 in the 2016 TIP Report), Uzbekistan (Tier 3), Cambodia
(Tier 2), India (Tier 2), and Qatar (Tier 2 Watch List).
" Countries with the highest absolute numbers of people subjected to modern
slavery, according to the 2016 Global Slavery Index, included India (Tier 2 in the
2016 TIP Report), China (Tier 2 Watch List), Pakistan (Tier 2 Watch List),
Bangladesh (Tier 2), and Uzbekistan (Tier 3).
1 See also CRS Report R42497, Trafficking in Persons: International Dimensions and Foreign Policy Issues for
Congress.
2 Walk Free Foundation, 2016 Global Slavery Index, 2016.Congressional Research Service
1
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Rosen, Liana W. Trafficking in Persons and U.S. Foreign Policy Responses in the 114th Congress, report, August 5, 2016; Washington D.C.. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc944776/m1/4/?q=%22labor%22: accessed April 23, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.