In this interview, the U.S. ambassador-at-large for the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, Ambassador Cindy Dyer, speaks about the released State Department’s 2023 Trafficking in Persons report, or the TIP Report, which examines government’s efforts to meet the Trafficking Victims Protection Act’s minimum standards to combat human trafficking, using a three-P framework of protecting victims, prosecuting traffickers, and preventing this crime by dismantling the systems that make it easier for traffickers to operate.
The interview is edited for clarity:
Secretary Blinken released the State Department’s 2023 Trafficking in Persons report, which examines government’s efforts to meet the Trafficking Victims Protection Act’s. Let hear from you.
Now in its 23rd year, the report reflects the U.S. Government’s commitment to global leadership on this key human rights issue, law enforcement and national security issue. It is our principal diplomatic and diagnostic tool to guide our engagements with foreign governments on human trafficking. The theme of this year’s report also reflects our commitment to what is called the fourth P: partnership. This year’s TIP Report introduction highlights and emphasizes the importance of partnership, shares lessons learned, and highlights elements and examples of effective partnerships for governments, international organizations, civil society, private sector entities, and other stakeholders.
For the second consecutive year, we partnered with the Human Trafficking Expert Consultant Network to provide content and feedback throughout the process of drafting the introduction. These consultants have a range of expertise related to combatting human trafficking, working with marginalized communities, trauma recovery and resiliency, mental health care, and survivor leadership. And they provide expertise and input into the development of Department of State anti-trafficking policies, strategies, and products – both in the United States and abroad.
We also included a special segment called Survivor Insights, perspectives from those with lived experience of human trafficking, written by network consultants, in their own voices. Collaborating with survivors as equal partners is critical to understanding the realities of human trafficking and establishing effective victim-centered, trauma-informed, and culturally competent anti-trafficking policies and strategies. I thank them for their thoughtful and meaningful contributions to this year’s TIP report, and for sharing their expertise with us.
This year’s TIP Report elevates important cross-cutting issues, including the non-punishment principle, unscrupulous manufacturers concealing forced labor, the vulnerability of boys and men to human trafficking, and online recruitment of vulnerable populations for forced labor. And I want to highlight one rapidly growing and troubling trend: forced labor, as a result of cyber scam operations. Traffickers have leveraged pandemic-related economic hardships, increased global youth unemployment, and international travel restrictions to exploit thousands of adults and children in a multi-billion-dollar industry over the last two years in these schemes.
Many people have responded to job offers for what they think are legitimate work in IT, in casinos, or other seemingly legitimate businesses. Often these individuals are forced to participate in cyber scams, under impossible quota arrangements that make them increasingly indebted to traffickers. Traffickers use this debt to exploit victims in forced labor and sex trafficking, including in special economic zones – primarily throughout Southeast Asia. but ensnaring nationals from at least 35 countries or territories.
We will continue to engage governments and authorities on the importance of proactively identifying and assisting victims and protecting people from fraudulent recruitment schemes like these. And we aim to raise awareness on this trend through this report. We will bring assistance to bear when we can, support government and civil society efforts to address this issue and protect victims.
In the country narratives, this year’s report assessed 188 countries and territories, including the United States. Overall, there are 24 tier-ranking upgrades and 20 downgrades, compared with 21 upgrades and 18 downgrades last year. There were two upgrades to Tier 1, 19 upgrades to Tier 2, and three upgrades to Tier 2 Watchlist from Tier 3. Half of this year’s 24 upgrades were in Sub-Saharan Africa. Downgrades this year highlight systemic gaps – governments not reporting their anti-trafficking efforts, not screening for trafficking indicators, not tackling forced labor adequately, not effectively monitoring protection systems, and not equitably implementing anti-trafficking efforts.
Across all data points included in the global totals tracking prosecutions, convictions, and victims identified, there were increases reported as compared to the 2022 total. Prosecutions were higher than the years immediately preceding the pandemic. Convictions continued to increase, and victim identifications increased by nearly 25,000 – although neither convictions nor victims identified were yet back to pre-pandemic levels and highs reported in 2019.
Globally, efforts to prosecute and convict labor traffickers and identify labor trafficking victims were also notably higher than prior years, which we attribute both to ongoing improvements in government efforts in this area as well as better government data collection and reporting.
Finally, before I open it up for questions, I want to highlight the eight TIP Report Heroes, who have devoted their lives to the fight against human trafficking and who the department is honoring today. The 2023 TIP Report Heroes come from Brazil, Cambodia, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, and Venezuela. We hope you saw the livestream with the award presentations and Evon Idahosa’s remarks on behalf of the group.
These individuals inspire each of us to do more to advance the global fight against human trafficking, and protect the victims and survivors of this crime. The honorees will engage with American communities and organizations, committed to ending human trafficking in Boston and Miami through the U.S. Department of State’s International Visitor Leadership Program, IVLP. I hope everyone has the opportunity to hear their stories of how they’ve used partnerships, often courageously and creatively, to advance our shared fight against trafficking and elevate the role of survivors. I am incredibly grateful to them for their efforts.
Let me end by saying I am so profoundly thankful to our colleagues at embassies around the world and throughout the department, who worked diligently to gather data and analyze trafficking trends and efforts year-round. A special thanks to the tireless team in the Trafficking in Persons Office who led the effort to produce this report. This truly is a year-long collaborative effort that I am so honored to share with the world today.
Thank you, Ambassador. Two questions, if I may. The first is there was a particular mention – well, the Secretary mentioned – on trafficking of boys, and I wonder if you could – I hadn’t read the report last year, so I don’t know if this is new to this year or if it’s something that’s been ongoing for a couple of years. But if you could give us a little bit more of substance, highlight on that particular aspect. And the second question is – since the report includes the United States, I assume the U.S. made the first tier, and so I’d like to have your assessment of human trafficking in the U.S. currently.
You’re correct. This year we did a highlight on the often-hidden victims that are men and boys. Men and boys have always been victims, and can be victims, but they are frequently overlooked. Frequently, folks think of a trafficking victim as a woman or a girl, but in fact all adults and all children can be victims, including men and boys.
Men and boys frequently are less likely to seek services and self-identify. And what’s even more troubling is that when they do, services are not always available for them. Some services are exclusive for women and girls. And so we wanted to highlight this to make sure that we are using appropriate screening. All individuals can be victims, and that in addition to screening and identifying, we need to make sur that victim-centered, trauma-informed services are available to all victims, including men and boys.
To your second question regarding the United States, our office does assess very deeply United States efforts to address trafficking in persons. This year we did assess the United States efforts as a Tier 1, because they were increasing. We looked at this government’s efforts, this reporting period compared to last reporting period, and we saw a number of increases, including the number of victims who are served with federal funds, the number of T visas that are issued, and reducing the time that it takes to get a visa.
Of course, as with all Tier 1 countries, we have areas for improvement to make. One of those improvements is making sure that all of our services are available to men and boys. We need to do a better job of identifying labor trafficking, because so often people are really looking for sex trafficking. And we need to make sure that we’re looking for all victims of trafficking. So, while we did assess ourselves at a Tier 1, the U.S. narrative is detailed and it provides not only areas where we did a great job, but areas where we have improvement.
Regarding trafficking, human trafficking in North Korean defectors, what action is the United States taking against Chinese Government, which is committing human trafficking and human rights violations against North Korean defectors? And how much does the United States care about these?
The United States cares deeply about all victims of trafficking. Our chief reason for putting so much time and effort into this report is so that it serves as both a diagnostic tool and a diplomatic tool. We really use this during our engagements with other countries. We use it to try to get better services and improve every country’s response.
As it pertains to the PRC, you can see in the TIP Report that we assessed that China is not meeting the minimum standards for addressing human trafficking and they are not making significant efforts to do so. That would put them on Tier 3; that’s the bottom tier.
Additionally, to your point, we found that they’re engaging in a policy or pattern of trafficking. We want countries to do a good job and certainly not to actually engage in bad practices, which the narrative clearly points out that China is doing, especially the policy or pattern of forced labor through the continued arbitrary detention of Uyghurs, ethnic Kazakhs, ethic Kyrgyz, and members of other religious and minority groups.
Additionally, the PRC is actually taking efforts to try to make it more difficult for us to determine if their supply chain is clean, for us to determine if forced labor is occurring. We are aggressively monitoring this. We are also monitoring the government’s use of the Belt and Road Initiative, where they are potentially using their – forced labor of their own citizens as well as host countries. So, we are definitely focusing on this really heavily in the report.
Can you speak to some of the new vulnerabilities that Russia’s war against Ukraine has created, and its long or short-term impacts, both in the region and globally please?
We remain deeply concerned of human trafficking faced by all of those fleeing the war in Ukraine. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine forced more than 8 million people to flee Ukraine and displaced 1.5 million more within its borders as of May 2023. We are actively watching and observing.
We were glad that governments and organizations have actually identified relatively few confirmed cases of human trafficking among those refugees. However, we remain very concerned and are working closely with our allies in Europe to really, vigorously monitor this system.
And we are particularly concerned about the trafficking also within Ukraine due to Russia’s invasion, particularly for children and internally displaced persons. That – the narrative in Ukraine is very thorough, very well researched, and I encourage you to read it. It will include much more specific information.
You talked about one of the persons that you invited to – here is from Iraq. And we know that, according to some reports, that Iraq has recorded an increase in human trafficking crimes, where the victims are women, girl children, and also LGBT persons. Then due to the collapse of the economy of Iran’s currency and also the conflict in Syria, this has led to influx – hundreds of the women and girls to go to the Kurdistan region of Iraq and also to Iraq and they are suffering from the human trafficking in the cafes and also in the hotels. Then what efforts do you have in this area, in Syria, in Iraq, and also to prevent and to mitigate this – the consequences of this human trafficking?
As you may have seen, Iraq in this year’s report was downgraded to Tier 2 Watchlist, because it does not meet the minimum standards and it didn’t indicate overall increasing efforts to address the very problems that you mentioned compared to the year before. Specifically, the federal government reported identifying fewer trafficking victims, despite the concern that you have raised. They’re identifying fewer trafficking victims, and they actually did not report law enforcement or all victim identification data. This is obviously concerning for us. We also are concerned because the federal government lacked adequate protection services for the victims that were identified. So, we have flagged these issues in the report.
I also feel like because I just delivered some bad news, let me deliver some good. We had two amazing TIP Report Heroes from Iraq today – a husband and wife team, who established an NGO called FATE that is serving Iraqi victims – but also individuals, as you pointed out, who are in Iraq who came from other places. This is an organization that they’re serving all, whether they are Iraqi citizens or not. So that bad news is tempered with some good news. And thank you for your question.
In your remarks you mentioned Africa, Sub-Saharan having a downgrade in trafficking in person. Can you tell us what seems to be the biggest problem in Africa when it comes to trafficking person and what the governments in Africa are doing to solve this problem?
And to be clear, I actually was saying that of the 24 upgrades that were given in this TIP Report – compared to last year, there were 21 – of the 24 upgrades – it’s actually good news – 12 of those upgrades were in Sub-Saharan Africa. So, there is a bit of a good news story there.
We carefully looked at each of those countries. Some of those countries – it is important to note – they were on what is called Tier 2 Watchlist, and they had been on that Watchlist for a long enough time that they couldn’t remain. They had to go up or they had to go down. And fortunately, many of those countries exhibited enough positive efforts compared to what they had done the year before that we assessed that they could go up; and so that accounted for 12 of the 24 upgrades.
And so, I really think this is a good news story. Similarly, one of our amazing TIP Heroes is from Sub-Saharan Africa; Evon Idahosa is from Nigeria. She has her office is based in Benin City, which is a real hub for many trafficking victims, specifically women and girls being trafficked out of Nigeria. She’s doing amazing work with her organization Pathfinders. And so that’s another bright spot.
And can you tell us if among the countries that are doing well in terms of trafficking person, is Angola and Mozambique part of those countries?
I would have to look up – I don’t know if I have the specific information on Angola and Mozambique. I know that we had one upgrade to a Tier 1 country. That was the Seychelles actually went up to Tier 1, which is – while, as we’ve established, they – it – all Tier 1 countries still have improvements to make, it’s the highest tier. And so that was a good news story. But tell me the specific country that you wanted to ask about.
Angola and Mozambique.
With regards to Mozambique, I do know that that is one that was downgraded. Mozambique was downgraded from Tier 2 to Tier 2 Watchlist. And the reason that occurred is because Mozambique did not meet the minimum standards as set out in the TVPA, but they – they were making some significant efforts, but they didn’t demonstrate overall increasing efforts. Specifically, the government did not identify any trafficking victims, and they lacked adequate procedures for frontline officials to even screen for those trafficking victims. And for the seventh consecutive year, the government did not adopt its draft national referral mechanism, which would set in place the screening procedures. These are obviously some areas for improvement. We hope that they’re able to do that during the year.
I would like to know first did Pakistan – which tier did it fall in? And secondly, we had a lady from Pakistan who went through human trafficking, and she was a national hockey player. And she left her child and – and so all these people, they each have very sad stories. And today this incident of Greece adds to this whole sadness. But from Pakistan point of view, human traffickers, we never hear severe punishments for them. We never hear their deportation. We never hear they’re like putting them in life – for their whole life in jail. What is the reason for that?
You actually bring up a really good point, because we do believe that in addition to identifying victims and referring them to services, traffickers will continue to operate as long as they can do so with impunity. It’s a financial crime, and as long as they can do it with impunity, then they will continue to do so, which is why one of the key areas that the Traffickers in Persons Report covers is not only was there a prosecution but also was there a conviction. And was there a conviction that resulted in a punishment that is appropriate to the severity of the crime.
Pakistan definitely has room for improvement in this area. One good thing – on the good news is the honoree, the TIP honoree that we had from Pakistan is actually a government official. He is someone who is in the police department, who is working really hard to create a more coordinated response between the police and the prosecutors and the service providers – so that victims can tell their story, so that prosecutors can bring that forward, and so that they’re more likely to get a conviction. His name is Zaheer, and he was really inspiring. I hope maybe you have an opportunity to talk to him while you’re here.
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