Guinea
current situation: Guinea is a source, transit, and
destination country for men, women, and children trafficked for the
purposes of forced labor and sexual exploitation; the majority of
victims are children, and internal trafficking is more prevalent
than transnational trafficking; within the country, girls are
trafficked primarily for domestic servitude and sexual exploitation,
while boys are trafficked for forced agricultural labor, and as
forced beggars, street vendors, shoe shiners, and laborers in gold
and diamond mines; some Guinean men are also trafficked for
agricultural labor within Guinea; transnationally, girls are
trafficked into Guinea for domestic servitude and likely also for
sexual exploitation
tier rating: Tier 2 Watch List - Guinea is on the Tier 2 Watch List
for its failure to provide evidence of increasing efforts to
eliminate trafficking over 2006; Guinea demonstrated minimal law
enforcement efforts for a second year in a row, while protection
efforts diminished over efforts in 2006; the government did not
report any trafficking convictions in 2007; due to a lack of
resources, the government does not provide shelter services for
trafficking victims; the government took no measures to reduce the
demand for commercial sexual exploitation (2008)
Guinea-Bissau
current situation: Guinea-Bissau is a source country
for children trafficked primarily for forced begging and forced
agricultural labor to other West African countries
tier rating: Tier 2 Watch List - for the second year in a row,
Guinea-Bissau is on the Tier 2 Watch List for its failure to combat
severe forms of trafficking in persons, as evidenced by the
continued failure to pass an anti-trafficking law and inadequate
efforts to investigate or prosecute trafficking crimes or convict
and punish trafficking offenders (2008)
Guyana
current situation: Guyana is a source, transit, and
destination country for men, women, and children trafficked for the
purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor; most
trafficking appears to take place in remote mining camps in the
country's interior; some women and girls are trafficked from
northern Brazil; reporting from other nations suggests Guyanese
women and girls are trafficked for sexual exploitation to
neighboring countries and Guyanese men and boys are subject to labor
exploitation in construction and agriculture; trafficking victims
from Suriname, Brazil, and Venezuela transit Guyana en route to
Caribbean destinations
tier rating: Tier 2 Watch List - for a second consecutive year,
Guyana is on the Tier 2 Watch List for failing to provide evidence
of increasing efforts to combat trafficking, particularly in the
area of law enforcement actions against trafficking offenders; the
government has yet to produce an anti-trafficking conviction under
the comprehensive Combating of Trafficking in Persons Act, which
became law in 2005; the government operates no shelters for
trafficking victims, but did include limited funding for
anti-trafficking NGOs in its 2008 budget; the government did not
make any effort to reduce demand for commercial sex acts during 2007
(2008)
India
current situation: India is a source, destination, and transit
country for men, women, and children trafficked for the purposes of
forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation; internal forced
labor may constitute India's largest trafficking problem; men,
women, and children are held in debt bondage and face forced labor
working in brick kilns, rice mills, agriculture, and embroidery
factories; women and girls are trafficked within the country for the
purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and forced marriage;
children are subjected to forced labor as factory workers, domestic
servants, beggars, and agriculture workers, and have been used as
armed combatants by some terrorist and insurgent groups; India is
also a destination for women and girls from Nepal and Bangladesh
trafficked for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation; Indian
women are trafficked to the Middle East for commercial sexual
exploitation; men and women from Bangladesh and Nepal are trafficked
through India for forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation in
the Middle East
tier rating: Tier 2 Watch List - India is on the Tier 2 Watch List
for a fifth consecutive year for its failure to provide evidence of
increasing efforts to combat human trafficking in 2007; despite the
reported extent of the trafficking crisis in India, government
authorities made uneven efforts to prosecute traffickers and protect
trafficking victims; government authorities continued to rescue
victims of commercial sexual exploitation and forced child labor and
child armed combatants, and began to show progress in law
enforcement against these forms of trafficking; a critical challenge
overall is the lack of punishment for traffickers, effectively
resulting in impunity for acts of human trafficking; India has not
ratified the 2000 UN TIP Protocol (2008)
Iran
current situation: Iran is a source, transit, and destination
country for men, women, and children trafficked for the purposes of
sexual exploitation and involuntary servitude; Iranian women are
trafficked internally for the purpose of forced prostitution and for
forced marriages to settle debts; Iranian and Afghan children living
in Iran are trafficked internally for the purpose of forced
marriages, commercial sexual exploitation and involuntary servitude
as beggars or laborers to pay debts, provide income or support drug
addiction of their families; press reports indicate that criminal
organizations play a significant role in human trafficking to and
from Iran, in connection with smuggling of migrants, drugs, and arms
tier rating: Tier 3 - Iran did not provide evidence of law
enforcement activities against trafficking, and credible reports
indicate that Iranian authorities' response is not sufficient to
penalize offenders, protect victims, and eliminate trafficking; some
aspects of Iranian law and policy hinder efforts to combat
trafficking including punishment of victims and legal obstacles to
punishing offenders; Iran has not ratified the 2000 UN TIP Protocol
(2009)
Korea, North
current situation: North Korea is a source country for
men, women, and children trafficked for the purposes of forced labor
and commercial sexual exploitation; the most common form of
trafficking involves North Korean women and girls who cross the
border into China voluntarily; additionally, North Korean women and
girls are lured out of North Korea to escape poor social and
economic conditions by the promise of food, jobs, and freedom, only
to be forced into prostitution, marriage, or exploitative labor
arrangements once in China
tier rating: Tier 3 - North Korea does not fully comply with minimum
standards for the elimination of trafficking and is not making
significant efforts to do so; the government does not acknowledge
the existence of human rights abuses in the country or recognize
trafficking, either within the country or transnationally; North
Korea has not ratified the 2000 UN TIP Protocol (2008)
Kuwait
current situation: Kuwait is a destination country for men
and women who migrate legally from South and Southeast Asia for
domestic or low-skilled labor, but are subjected to conditions of
involuntary servitude by employers in Kuwait including conditions of
physical and sexual abuse, non-payment of wages, confinement to the
home, and withholding of passports to restrict their freedom of
movement; Kuwait is reportedly a transit point for South and East
Asian workers recruited for low-skilled work in Iraq; some of these
workers are deceived as to the true location and nature of this
work, and others are subjected to conditions of involuntary
servitude in Iraq
tier rating: Tier 3 - Kuwaiti government has shown an inability to
define trafficking and has demonstrated insufficient political will
to address human trafficking adequately; much of the human
trafficking found in Kuwait involves domestic workers in private
residences and the government is reluctant to prosecute Kuwaiti
citizens; the government has not enacted legislation targeting human
trafficking nor established a permanent shelter for victims of
trafficking (2009)
Libya
current situation: Libya is a transit and destination country
for men and women from sub-Saharan Africa and Asia trafficked for
the purposes of forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation
tier rating: Tier 2 Watch List - Libya is on the Tier 2 Watch List
for its failure to provide evidence of increasing efforts to address
trafficking in persons in 2007 when compared to 2006, particularly
in the area of investigating and prosecuting trafficking offenses;
Libya did not publicly release any data on investigations or
punishment of any trafficking offenses (2008)
Malaysia
current situation: Malaysia is a destination and, to a
lesser extent, a source and transit country for women and children
trafficked for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation, and
men, women, and children for forced labor; Malaysia is mainly a
destination country for men, women, and children who migrate
willingly from South and Southeast Asia to work, some of whom are
subjected to conditions of involuntary servitude by Malaysian
employers in the domestic, agricultural, construction, plantation,
and industrial sectors; to a lesser extent, some Malaysian women,
primarily of Chinese ethnicity, are trafficked abroad for commercial
sexual exploitation
tier rating: Tier 2 Watch List - the Government of Malaysia does not
fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of
trafficking and is not making significant efforts to do so, despite
some progress in enforcing the 2007 comprehensive anti-trafficking
law; it has yet to fully address labor trafficking in Malaysia;
there are credible allegations of involvement of Malaysian
immigration officials in trafficking and extorting Burmese refugees;
the government did not develop mechanisms to effectively screen
victims of trafficking in vulnerable groups and condones the
confiscation of passports of migrant workers by employers (2009)
Mauritania
current situation: Mauritania is a source and destination
country for children trafficked for forced labor and sexual
exploitation; slavery-related practices, rooted in ancestral
master-slave relationships, continue to exist in isolated parts of
the country; Mauritanian boys called talibe are trafficked within
the country by religious teachers for forced begging; children are
also trafficked by street gangs within the country that force them
to steal, beg, and sell drugs; girls are trafficked internally for
domestic servitude and sexual exploitation; women and children from
neighboring states are trafficked into Mauritania for purposes of
forced begging, domestic servitude, and sexual exploitation
tier rating: Tier 3 - the Government of Mauritania does not fully
comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking
and is not making significant efforts to do so; the government did
not show evidence of overall progress in prosecuting and punishing
trafficking offenders, protecting trafficking victims, and
preventing new incidents of trafficking during the past year;
progress that the previous government demonstrated in 2007 through
enactment of strengthened anti-slavery legislation and deepened
political will to eliminate slavery and trafficking has stalled; law
enforcement efforts to address human trafficking including
traditional slavery practices decreased (2009)