Human Trafficking by Country - By Miles Cruice-Barnett and Andrew Roberts
We were able to find the 21 worst countries for human trafficking, shown on the map below, through the State Department website, which creates an annual report on it, called the Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report. The ones above are listed as “Tier 3”, or those countries that do not comply with the State Department’s standards under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), which states that: Governments should prohibit and punish all acts of trafficking, that the punishment for such acts must be equivalent to that of serious crimes, that the punishment must be sufficient to deter others from committing such trafficking crimes, and that the government must make efforts to eliminate trafficking within its borders. Further information on this can be found at:
http://www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/2011/164236.htm
On reading the individual reports for each of these Tier 3 countries, we found that most were very similar, so we will be reporting it in one general essay, which follows.The main forms of trafficking in most countries were forced labor and sex trafficking, and most trafficking victims were women and children, women for the prostitution industry, and children because they are weak and often lack the ability to defend themselves. These people are sometimes promised better lives and richer pockets if they go away to work for someone, only to find that they are working in absolutely horrifying conditions, with no way out.
Most of these 21 countries are both the source and destination of many trafficked persons, both buying and selling individuals. It has become an economic necessity in these countries, where legitimate workers are expensive, comparatively.
It is also noted that, especially in Africa, children and young men were trafficked into becoming soldiers for various militant groups, such as the FARDC (the Congolese army), and the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army, the army whose leader the Kony 2012 movement sought to bring to justice). They are stolen from their homes, often at night, and forced to fight for a cause that they do not enjoy, and cannot leave.
What is even more depressing is that most governments do not make any effort to stamp out these criminals. They either have no laws prohibiting trafficking (which, thankfully, is not common), have laws with loopholes, such as Yemen, which has a law outlawing the forced movement of humans, but not trafficking in general, laws whose punishments are not severe enough for the crime, and laws that are not enforced at all.
Over all, trafficking has gotten better around the world, but there are still countries like theses that need improved laws and enforcement. This task is really left to the government of each individual country, but the standards stated in the TVPA are a step in the right direction.
Red=Does Not Comply with TVPA Standards, Yellow=Complies with Some TVPA Standards, Green=Complies with TVPA standards
