NCJ Number
200884
Date Published
2003
Length
177 pages
Annotation
This report describes international and United States efforts to end trafficking in persons, to protect and help victims, and prosecute those who are abusively exploiting people or keeping them in slave-like conditions; attention is given to the provisions and enforcement of the U.S. Trafficking Victims Protection Act.
Abstract
This third annual Trafficking in Persons Report is issued to the U.S. Congress as required by the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which was enacted in October 2000 to combat human trafficking by ensuring the effective punishment of traffickers; enhancing protection for victims; and creating significant mandates for the Departments of State, Justice, Labor, Health and Human Services, and the U.S. Agency for International Development. The report notes that millions of women, children, and men worldwide are being trafficked into the international sex trade and into forced labor situations throughout the world. The report first discusses why trafficking in persons is flourishing. Among the reasons identified are poverty and a desire for a better life, ignorance of trafficking's consequences, disruption of societal values, political and economic instability, the demand for cheap labor, high profits, and low risk. The report also discusses some of the broad socioeconomic consequences of large-scale trafficking in persons, such as depriving countries of human capital, the breakdown in social values, the undermining of public health, and the funneling of trafficking funds to the other illicit activities of organized crime. Based on information obtained from U.S. embassies and consulates around the world, foreign embassies in Washington, and nongovernmental and international organizations, this report profiles those countries that have been found to have a significant number of victims of severe forms of trafficking. The narratives provide an overview of the trafficking situation in each of these countries and the government's efforts to combat trafficking. The report covers the period of April 2002 through March 2003. For the first time, this report identifies countries that have not made significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with specified minimum standards of response to trafficking in persons. The countries so identified face potential sanctions from the United States, including loss of certain types of U.S. assistance.