Trafficking in Persons Report – June 2009

Dear Friend,

The Trafficking in Persons (TIP),  released on June 16 this year by the US Secretary of State, is perhaps the most comprhensive global report that gives a detailed account of countries of origin, transit, or destination for trafficking victims; nature and scope of trafficking; and the efforts of the Governments across the world to combat, prevent and eliminate severe forms of trafficking in persons.

 This ninth annual report is brought out by the Department of State of the United States of America,  as required by the United States’ Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA) and  the enacted amendments of the Act in December 2008. The main purpose of the law is to free the victims of the “modern-day slavery” by punishing traffickers, protecting victims, and preventing trafficking from occurring.

 The TVPA sets minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and mandates the State Department to place each country in one of the 3-Tier Lists based mainly on the extent of government’s efforts to combat trafficking.

 Tier 1 countries are those whose governments that fully comply with the minimum standards set by TVPA. The Tier 2 countries are those that are making significant efforts towards compliance with the TVPA minimum standards.  The countries placed under Tier 2 Watch List category are those where the absolute number of victims of severe forms of trafficking is very significant or is significantly increasing, there is failure to provide evidence of increasing efforts to combat severe forms of trafficking in persons and a commitment is made to take required additional steps to combat trafficking. The Tier 3 countries are those that are not making significant efforts to comply with the minimum standards to combat trafficking.

The 2009 Report places India among the 51 other countries in the “Tier II Watch List” for the failure of the government, despite its significant efforts, to fully comply with the TVPA’s minimum standards to combat trafficking. The report points out that India “has not demonstrated sufficient progress in its law enforcement efforts to address human trafficking, particularly bonded labour”. Further to it, the report goes on to say that the “internal forced labour may constitute India’s largest trafficking problem; men. women and children in debt bondage are forced to work in industries such as brick kilns, rice mills, agriculture, and embroidery factories”. Citing estimates of NGOs,  the report says that the problem of bonded or forced labour “affects tens of millions of Indians”. 

India is also a source, destination and transit country for men. women and children trafficked for the purposes of forced labour and commercial sexual exploitation, says the Report adding that women and girls are trafficked within the country not only for sexual exploitation but also for forced marriage. Children in large numbers are pushed into forced labour in various forms of work.   

 For those of you who may like to access more detailed and relevant information on the 320-page TIP Report I have enclosed the Introductory Chapter and the section that deals specifically on Trafficking in Persons in India and the measures taken by the Government to combat severe forms of trafficking. The latter lays out the reasons for placing India in the “Tier-2 Watch List”, provides recommendations and details prosecution, protection and prevention measures to combat trafficking in India. Thank you.

  Sincerely yours,

 A.J. Regis, National Coordinator, JJND

Please CLICK the following link to access the Introductory Chapter of “The 2009 Trafficking In Persons (TIP) Report”

http://files.getdropbox.com/u/756350/Trafficking%20in%20Persons%20Report%20June%202009.pdf

Please CLICK the following link to access the extracted section on India from “The 2009 Trafficking In Persons (TIP) Report”

http://files.getdropbox.com/u/756350/India%20in%20Tier-2%20Watch%20List%20of%20Countries.docx