WASHINGTON, June 3 (UPI) -- Citizens of the United States and other wealthy nations help create the marketplace for human trafficking, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday at the release of the State Department's 2005 trafficking in persons report.
"Responsibility does not rest only with developing countries whose citizens are vulnerable to trafficking because of poverty or corruption or lack of education," Rice said. "Destination, or demand countries -- like the United States and other prosperous nations whose citizens create the marketplace for trafficking, also bear a heavy responsibility."
The report placed four major U.S. allies and oil suppliers -- Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates -- high on the list of countries that have failed to crack down on trafficking. Countries where trafficking occurs are assigned a rating by the State Department based on their efforts at punishing traffickers, helping victims and preventing future incidents.
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates landed in the worst abusers category, Tier 3, mainly because they failed to crack down on forced labor trafficking in their countries, said the head of the State Department's anti-trafficking office, John Miller.
In these countries, according to Miller and the report, foreign workers have been forced into domestic servitude, where the women were raped and both men and women were beaten. There are few shelters for workers who try to escape abusive situations or convictions of abusers, he said.
Miller said sanctions would be required if these countries stay in the Tier 3 rating, adding they have 90 days to make enough progress -- freeing victims and jailing traffickers -- to make sanctions unnecessary.
"I hope there is enough progress," Miller said. "But there is that possibility" of sanctions.
Ten other countries were included in Tier 3, including Myanmar, Bolivia, Cambodia, and North Korea.
Possible consequences to countries that do not address human trafficking include withholding U.S. military aid or international development assistance from organizations such as the International Monetary Fund or World Bank. President Bush can also decide to waive the sanctions.
However, the purpose of the report is not to punish countries, Miller said, but to compel them to tackle the problem of human trafficking within their borders.
This is the fifth year the State Department has released the trafficking report, which was required by Congress beginning in 2000 with the Trafficking Victims Protection Act.
Although trafficking is associated with the transportation of people across international borders, it also includes using violence, deception and coercion to hold people and force them to work against their will. Sexual exploitation is involved in most cases.
Human trafficking is a $9.5 billion trade -- the third-largest source of income for organized crime, said the State Department. By most estimates, 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders -- 20,000 across U.S. borders alone. The figure for domestic trafficking is said to be in the millions.
Likening trafficking to a modern-day slave trade, Rice said the report's purpose is to "raise international awareness of the crime of trafficking and spur governments across the globe to take determined actions against it."
