This morning I went to the State Department to hear an NGO briefing on the newly released report from the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (TIP). It's just shy of 300 pages, mainly giving country-specific information on the progress or decline of policies & practices that each nation has related to their fight against trafficking.
This year's report "beefs up" the emphasis on labor exploitation, which some NGO reps vocally appreciated. It found that while perpetrators of sexual trafficking still go largely unpunished, the forced labor offenders have even fewer prosecutions - the world over. Many times persons caught in trafficking migrant workers or forcing children into labor are given the veritable "slap on the wrist."
Accompanying the report is a 15-minute segment of a film in progress called Not My Life. It's a compelling look at child sex tourism and child labor in various places around the world. One of the root causes of childrens' vulnerability to trafficking is their impoverished and dysfunctional family situation.
The report is not intended to rate the US (they rate each country as Tier 1 [best], Tier 2, Tier 2 Watch List, and Tier 3), but they did hand out a summary of recommendations for the US to complement the section they have in the report that includes all the elements of evaluation that they give the other countries. So in this way, they've tried to be less preachy to other countries and more diplomatic (by including some self-criticism as well).
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