Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report 2015

The U.S. State Department's annual Trafficking In Persons (TIP) report for 2015 was released earlier this year. 

 

What is the TIP report?

The TIP report helps to identify countries where trafficking is most problematic.  It rates 188 countries and gives each nation a tier rating based on their compliance with standards outlined in the TVPA. These tiers are:

• Tier 1 Countries whose governments fully comply with the TVPA's minimum standards.
• Tier 2 Countries whose governments do not fully comply with the TVPA’s minimum standards, but are making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with those standards.
• Tier 2 Watchlist Countries whose governments do not fully comply with the TVPA’s minimum standards, but are making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with those standards AND: a) The absolute number of victims of severe forms of trafficking is very significant or is significantly increasing; or b) There is a failure to provide evidence of increasing efforts to combat severe forms of trafficking in persons from the previous year; or c) The determination that a country is making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with minimum standards was based on commitments by the country to take additional future steps over the next year.
• Tier 3 Countries whose governments do not fully comply with the minimum standards and are not making significant efforts to do so.

What Types of Trafficking are covered in the report?

1. Sex Trafficking:  When an adult engages in a commercial sex act, such as prostitution, as the result of force, threats of force, fraud, coercion or any combination of such means, that person is a victim of trafficking. Under such circumstances, perpetrators involved in recruiting, harboring, enticing, transporting, providing, obtaining, or maintaining a person for that purpose are guilty of the sex trafficking of an adult. Sex trafficking also may occur within debt bondage, as individuals are forced to continue in prostitution through the use of unlawful “debt,” purportedly incurred through their transportation, recruitment, or even their crude “sale”—which exploiters insist they must pay off before they can be free. An adult’s consent to participate in prostitution is not legally determinative: if one is thereafter held in service through psychological manipulation or physical force, he or she is a trafficking victim and should receive benefits. 
2. Child Sex Trafficking: When a child (under 18 years of age) is recruited, enticed, harbored, transported, provided, obtained, or maintained to perform a commercial sex act, proving force, fraud, or coercion is not necessary for the offense to be characterized as human trafficking. There are no exceptions to this rule: no cultural or socioeconomic rationalizations alter the fact that children who are prostituted are trafficking victims. The use of children in the commercial sex trade is prohibited under U.S. law and by statute in most countries around the world.   
3. Forced Labor: Forced labor, sometimes also referred to as labor trafficking, encompasses the range of activities—recruiting, harboring, transporting, providing, or obtaining—involved when a person uses force or physical threats, psychological coercion, abuse of the legal process, deception, or other coercive means to compel someone to work. Once a person’s labor is exploited by such means, the person’s prior consent to work for an employer is legally irrelevant: the employer is a trafficker and the employee a trafficking victim. Migrants are particularly vulnerable to this form of human trafficking, but individuals may also be forced into labor in their own countries.  Female victims of forced or bonded labor, especially women and girls in domestic servitude, are often sexually exploited as well. 
4. Bonded Labor or Debt Bondage: One form of coercion is the use of a bond or debt. Some workers inherit debt; for example, in South Asia it is estimated that there are millions of trafficking victims working to pay off their ancestors’ debts. Others fall victim to traffickers or recruiters who unlawfully exploit an initial debt assumed, wittingly or unwittingly, as a term of employment. Debts taken on by migrant laborers in their countries of origin, often with the involvement of labor agencies and employers in the destination country, can also contribute to a situation of debt bondage. Such circumstances may occur in the context of employment-based temporary work programs in which a worker’s legal status in the destination country is tied to the employer and workers fear seeking redress. 
5. Domestic Servitude: Involuntary domestic servitude is a form of human trafficking found in distinct circumstances—work in a private residence—that creates unique vulnerabilities for victims. It is a crime in which a domestic worker is not free to leave her employment and is abused and underpaid, if paid at all. Many domestic workers do not receive the basic benefits and protections commonly extended to other groups of workers—things as simple as a day off. Moreover, their ability to move freely is often limited, and employment in private homes increases their vulnerability and isolation.  Authorities can't inspect homes as easily as formal workplaces, and in many cases do not have the mandate or capacity to do so.  Domestic workers, especially women, confront various forms of abuse, harassment, and exploitation. 
6. Forced Child Labor: Although children may legally engage in certain forms of work, children can also be found in slavery or slavery-like situations. Some indicators of forced labor of a child include situations in which the child appears to be in the custody of a non-family member who requires the child to perform work that financially benefits someone outside the child's family and does not offer the child the option of leaving. 
7. Unlawful Recruitment and Use of Child Soldiers: Child soldering is a manifestation of human trafficking when it involves the unlawful recruitment or use of children (through force fraud or coercion) by armed forces as combatants.  Perpetrators may be government armed forces, paramilitary organizations, or rebel groups. Many children are forcibly abducted to be used as combatants. Others are made to work as porters, cooks, guards, servants, messengers, or spies. Young girls can be forced to marry or have sex with commanders and male combatants. Both male and female child soldiers are often sexually abused and are at high risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases.

The 2015 Report Summary:

• There are 31 countries that received the highest rating of Tier 1.
• 89 Countries received a Tier 2 rating.
• 44 Countries are on the Tier 2 Watch List that could lead to sanctions unless their records improve.
• 23 Countries received the lowest rating of Tier 3 which means they are found not to be taking the affirmative steps necessary to fight human trafficking.
• Out of those that received the Tier 3 rating, 2 of those were countries that were automatically downgraded to that rating.  Automatic downgrades were introduced in 2013 to prevent a country from remaining stagnant on the Tier 2 Watch List. After 2 years of being on the Tier 2 Watch List they are automatically downgrades to Tier 3.  The countries downgraded were Belarus and South Sudan. 

For the full report visit: US State Department

If you want to learn more about what human trafficking looks like globally this is a great place to start.  Choose a country (they are all listed alphabetically and read what trafficking looks like in that country.  If you're not sure which country to choose, read the report for the country you live in.  If you're not sure how to read a country narrative This page will help.