The US on Thursday reaffirmed commitment to combating human trafficking, calling it an attack on human rights and freedoms.
It “violates the universal right of every person to have autonomy over their own life and actions,” said US Secretary of State Antony Blinken while hosting the 2023 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report Launch Ceremony.
“Today more than 27 million people around the world are denied that right. Trafficking harms our societies, weakening the rule of law, corrupting supply chains, exploiting workers, fueling violence and it disproportionately impacts traditionally marginalized groups.
“The TIP report is a central part of the United States government’s anti-trafficking work, and it reflects the efforts of so many people in this room today and countless others, both in Washington and around the world.
“The report also highlights a number of concerning trends. The first is the continued expansion of forced labor as the pandemic disrupted supply chains around the world and spiked demand in certain industries like PPE production, exploitative employers used a host of tactics to take advantage of lower paid and more vulnerable workers.
“The second is the rise in labor trafficking using online scams, which have proliferated as more of the world gains access to the internet. The pandemic supercharged this trend traffickers capitalized on widespread unemployment to recruit victims with fake job listings and then force them to run international scams.
“Third, the report exposes the risks faced — facing an often overlooked segment of trafficking victims, boys and young men. According to a recent report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime between 2004 and 2020, the percentage of boys identified as victims of human trafficking rose five fold.
“In Seychelles, the national government offered enhanced training to airport staff and police officers to better spot trafficking. The government also instituted a new policies to screen vulnerable populations like migrants at transit points for trafficking indicators that’s helped them identify more victims than ever before and convict a record number of traffickers.
“Hong Kong launched a new hotline to help trafficking victims report fraudulent overseas employment scams and to get help in its first month that hotline received hundreds of calls leading to several investigations.
“In Denmark, authorities led a renewed focus on and committed additional resources to combating human trafficking, identifying more victims prosecuting and convicting more traffickers”.
Source: Kuwait News Agency