US removes India from human trafficking 'Watch List'

Washington, Jun 28 (PTI) After a gap of six years, the
United States has taken India off the human trafficking 'Watch
List' for making significant efforts in combating the menace.
In its annual Trafficking in Persons report, the State
Department has upgraded India to Tier 2 countries after
keeping it on a 'Watch List' for six years.
The Watch List is for those countries where the number
of victims of severe forms of trafficking is very significant
or is significantly increasing and there is a failure to
provide evidence of increasing efforts to combat it.
Tier 2 is for those countries whose governments do not
fully comply with the minimum standards of the Trafficking
Victims Protection Act's (TVPA) but are making significant
efforts in this regard.
"The Government of India does not fully comply with
the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking;
however, it is making significant efforts to do so," the State
Department said in its report justifying its decision to
upgrade India's position.
The report analysed conditions in 184 countries and
ranked them in terms of their effectiveness in fighting the
human trafficking.
It has identified 23 nations as failing to meet
minimum international standards to curb the scourge, which
claims mainly women and children as victims. That's up from 13
in 2010. Another 41 countries were placed on the "watch list"
that could lead to sanctions unless their records improve.
"All countries can and must do more," Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton said while releasing the report. "More
human beings are being exploited today than ever before."
"The Ministry of Home Affairs' launched the
government's 'Comprehensive Scheme for Strengthening Law
Enforcement Response in India', which seeks to improve India's
overall law enforcement response to all forms of trafficking,
including bonded labor, and established at least 87 new Anti
Human Trafficking Units (AHTUs)," the State Department said.
"The government also ratified the 2000 UN TIP
Protocol. The government took important law enforcement steps
by convicting several bonded labor offenders with sentences
between five and 14 years and improved rescue and
rehabilitation efforts for bonded laborers.
"Overall law enforcement efforts against bonded labor,
however, remained inadequate, and the complicity of public
officials in human trafficking remained a serious problem,
which impeded progress," it said.
As such it recommended the central and state
government law enforcement capacity to fight against all forms
of human trafficking; work towards ensuring that national
legislation prohibits and punishes all forms of human
trafficking; and increase intrastate and interstate
investigations, prosecutions, and convictions on all forms of
trafficking, including bonded labor, the report said.
"India is a source, destination, and transit country
for men, women and children subjected to forced labor and sex
trafficking. The forced labor of millions of its citizens
constitutes 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," the report said.
It added that women and girls are trafficked within
the country for the purposes of forced prostitution. Religious
pilgrimage centers and cities popular for tourism continue to
be vulnerable to child sex tourism.