| |||||
|
 | |
THE US RELEASES THE 2005 On June 3, 2005, the United States Department of State issued the Trafficking in Persons Report for the year 2005 (TIP Report). The report highlights that trafficking in persons is still a significant problem in many countries around the world, especially in the fourteen Tier 3 countries that failed to fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking in accordance with Section 108 of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, as amended by the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2003, and that are not making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with such standards. "It is to be observed that many of the Arab countries are listed in Tier 3, namely Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and the United Arab Emirates. Something has to be done - especially considering that the Arab region has been excluded from real reform that is essential to combating the problem in the region," commented Mohamed Mattar, Adjunct Professor of Law and Executive Director at The Protection Project at The Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). Professor Mattar added that "None of these countries recognizes trafficking in persons, whether for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation or labor exploitation, and that none of them has specific anti-trafficking legislation." The 2005 TIP Report makes it clear that the absence of specific anti-trafficking legislation affects the country's placement in a specific tier. Additionally, the report specifically mentions other Arab countries that lack a legal framework to combat trafficking, such as Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Libya, Oman, and Yemen, which are placed on Tier 2, and Bahrain, which appears on the Tier 2 Watch List. An important form of trafficking that the 2005 TIP Report has devoted more attention to this year is child sex tourism. References were made to the existence of the problem in countries of destination for child sex tourists, including: Brazil, Costa Rica, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Morocco, the Philippines, Russia, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. Child sex tourism was also addressed in countries of origin for child sex tourists, including France, Germany, Italy, and Singapore. The Department of State Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons has awarded The Protection Project a grant to further examine the problem of child sex tourism and the appropriate responses to combat the problem. "However, our attention to demand for commercial sex should not be limited to children or child sex tourism. In all forms of trafficking involving commercial sexual exploitation, the client or the purchaser of sexual services must be held criminally responsible for his acts," stated Professor Mattar. "The TIP report applauded efforts made by several Tier 1 countries to reduce demand, such as the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Morocco, South Korea, Spain and Sweden, and called upon others on Tier 1, such as Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Italy, Lithuania, and Norway to engage in such efforts," continued Professor Mattar. At the same time, he stated that "I believe that this placement would differ in 2006, once the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2005 is passed, since the new law will specifically require an inquiry into efforts made by governments in implementing "measures to reduce the demand for commercial sex acts…"
The TIP Report serves to expose these despicable aspects of The Report In addition to the HTML-based files listed below, this report is also available in PDF format as a single file [PDF: 6.26 MB ]. To view the PDF file, you will need to download, at no cost, the Adobe Acrobat Reader. |
|