U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken presents an award to Samson Inocencio Jr. of the Philippines at an event to release the Trafficking in Persons Report in Washington on June 24. In this year’s report, the Philippines remained in the Tier 1 bracket. (Photo: AFP)
The annual human trafficking ranking by the US State Department held few surprises with Myanmar and Cambodia retaining their Tier 3 positions on the bottom while Laos was downgraded into the Tier 2 Watchlist.
This year’s Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report, released on June 24, found complicit and corrupt officials allowing human traffickers to thrive, and in Myanmar“child soldiers” were reported to be used in support roles, but some Southeast Asian nation improved their standings.
The TIP Report also echoed the United States Institute for Peace (USIP) which in May named Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia as the epicenter of human trafficking and organized crime “that is rapidly evolving into the most powerful criminal network of the modern era.”
All three countries are synonymous with human trafficking, slave labor, scam compounds, and illegal gambling and the USIP estimated that the Southeast Asian countries stole almost US$64 billion a year from around the world.
The US State Department has a four-tier TIP system of ranking countries on their ability to combat human trafficking. Tier 1 countries meet minimum standards. Tier 2 is for countries that fail to meet those standards but are making a significant effort.
Then there is the Tier 2 Watchlist for countries that are failing to combat a significant increase in severe forms of trafficking. At the bottom of the heap is Tier 3, where nations fail to meet minimum standards nor are they making a significant effort.
"Traffickers exploited an estimated 120,000 victims in forced criminality"
Predictably, the ruling military in Myanmar and the Laos government did not respond, although shortly before the TIP Report was released the communist government in Vientiane cried poor saying “we just don’t have enough manpower and money to deal” with human traffickers.
“The people we have now don’t have a good understanding of the problem,” an official from the Ministry of Public Security told US-based Radio Free Asia.
“For example, the ministry wants to establish an anti-cybercrime unit, but doesn’t have funding to do so.”
In Myanmar — engulfed by a three-and-a-half-year civil war — the military regime failed to effectively address the continued expansion of operations “through which traffickers exploited an estimated 120,000 victims in forced criminality,” the report said.
It noted regular and increasing reports of corruption and complicity within the ranks of the military, police, local officials, and the ethnic armed organizations in running organized crime operations and that the junta had “forcibly recruited and used child soldiers in combat and support roles.”
Horrendous details of the victims in Myanmar — where people have been shackled for days on end, forced to drink their own urine or beaten to death as a warning to force others to work harder — have emerged in recent months and involve up to 400,000 victims in Southeast Asia.
Comparatively, Vietnam improved its standing while Hong Kong was downgraded to the Tier 2 Watchlist, primarily over the treatment of domestic helpers from the Philippines and Indonesia, provoking an angry response from the Chinese territory’s administration.
Of the remaining Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries, Singapore and the Philippines remained in the Tier 1 bracket, Indonesia, Thailand and Timor-Leste retained their Tier 2 positions and Malaysia returned to Tier 2 for the first time since 2017 with a significant improvement in its conviction rate.
"Official complicity and endemic corruption were widespread in trafficking crimes"
However, the trafficking of child brides in Malaysia remains an issue.
In Brunei — where press freedom is “virtually non-existent” — the media failed to report the tiny island state was dropped to Tier 3 or that “authorities likely inappropriately detained, prosecuted, and deported potential unidentified sex and labor trafficking victims.”
The US State Department’s assessment of Cambodia — where human trafficking evolved out of scam compounds during the pandemic — was blunt in retaining Phnom Penh at Tier 3 saying official complicity and endemic corruption were widespread in trafficking crimes.
“Observers reported some local authorities, law enforcement, and security forces directly facilitated trafficking crimes by colluding with criminal networks,” it said, adding victims accused Cambodian officials “of conspiring with labor brokers to commit trafficking crimes.”
“NGOs also continued to allege police and other officials were complicit in online scam operations that forced thousands of Chinese, Southeast Asian, and other foreign nationals to work in “call centers” in Sihanoukville and other locations.”
It found senior government officials and advisers owned directly, or through businesses, properties that were “to be utilized by online scam operators, used to exploit victims in labor trafficking and financially benefited directly from these crimes.”
Additionally, officials had actively undermined anti-trafficking law enforcement and victim protection efforts while dispelling reported accusations through “minimization and denial in public messaging” of the severity of trafficking and online scam operations.
It was a point emphasized by outgoing US ambassador Patrick Murphy who gave a round of interviews before departing Phnom Penh in May, urging Cambodia to confront the cyber scam issue and its negative impact on the country's reputation and economic development.
"The US 'only researched negative information and slandered Cambodia.'”
“I think it's really important for government spokespeople, representatives and officials to do first when they are asked by the media or questioned by international organizations is to acknowledge that these problems exist,” he told the independent Kiri Post.
That denial emerged again when government officials responded to the TIP Report, claiming Cambodia was actually a victim of traffickers and interior ministry spokesperson Khieu Sopheak urged the US to name the complicit officials.
The TIP Report rarely names suspects who are instead referred to international law enforcement agencies or subjected to sanctions. The Camboja News has published a limited list but most journalists choose not to identify out of fear of criminal defamation laws.
Chou Bun Eng, head of the National Committee for Counter Trafficking (NCCT), told local media the US “only researched negative information and slandered Cambodia” and suggested the report’s authors might have gathered their data from “outside agents or spies”.
She also asked the US to refer trafficking cases to the NCCT as this would help prevent the widespread dissemination of information that could have an impact on the number of foreign visitors and investors coming into Cambodia.
NGOs ‘conservatively’ estimated about 100,000 victims of traffickers were being held in Cambodia, the majority in Sihanoukville, a port city on the southern coast with a notorious reputation as a base for criminal syndicates.
