India on US human trafficking watch list for fifth year

Source: Economic Times India

5 Jun, 2008, 2155 hrs IST, IANS

WASHINGTON: The US has placed India on its second worst category of human trafficking watch list for the fifth year in a row for allegedly failing to show evidence of increasing efforts to combat the problem.

"India is a source, destination, and transit country for men, women, and children trafficked for the purposes of forced labour and commercial sexual exploitation," an annual US State Department report released Wednesday said, placing New Delhi on the Tier-2 Watch List.

"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," said the 2008 Trafficking in Persons Report released by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

"Despite the reported extent of the trafficking crisis in India, government authorities made uneven efforts to prosecute traffickers and protect trafficking victims," it said, suggesting: "Internal forced labour may constitute India's largest trafficking problem."


Read more: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/India_on_US_human_trafficking_watch_list/articleshow/3103789.cms

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Snip~ "Denying a reporter's suggestion that India and China had not been moved to the worst Tier 3 as the US was trying to forge economic ties with them, Mark Lagon, director of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons said: "With respect to India and China, these are both very serious cases."