Press Releases

State Department Annual Report On Human Trafficking 2005 (June 3, 2005)

In his 2005 inaugural address, President Bush gave renewed voice to the hopes and dreams of people around the world who seek lives of freedom. He said, "America will not pretend that the jailed dissidents prefer their chains, or that women welcome humiliation and servitude, or that any human being aspires to live at the mercy of bullies." Yet for millions of people entrapped each year in vicious schemes of labor and sex trafficking, freedom is denied. These trafficking victims are deprived of their most basic human rights and fall into modern-day slavery. President Bush, the Congress, and the American people are united in efforts to eradicate trafficking in persons internationally and within national borders because this global crime opposes the universal value of freedom.

This fifth annual Trafficking in Persons Report, along with the $96 million in anti-trafficking assistance our nation provided to foreign governments and non-government organizations last year, demonstrates our strong commitment to this cause. This year, we included more country analyses as a result of deeper research and a wider range of sources. We also expanded our coverage of labor slavery, especially internal labor trafficking. Forced labor and involuntary servitude are appallingly common, including whole villages working to pay off old debts passed down through generations.

The TIP Report serves to expose these despicable aspects of trafficking. It provokes, lauds, and challenges. Countries including the United States, which is dealing with its own trafficking problem, have been inspired to greater action against human trafficking as a result of this unique compendium. By reading it, we hope you are joining with us in the abolitionist movement of the 21st century to advance freedom for the world’s most vulnerable citizens.

Sincerely,
Condoleezza Rice

Introduction

The 2005 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report: Its Purpose

The Department of State is required by law to submit a report each year to the U.S. Congress on foreign governments’ efforts to eliminate severe forms of trafficking in persons. This Report is the fifth annual TIP Report.

This Report is intended to raise global awareness and spur foreign governments to take effective actions to counter all forms of trafficking in persons - a form of modern day slavery. The Report has increasingly focused the efforts of a growing community of nations to share information and to partner in new and important ways to fight human trafficking. A country that fails to take significant actions to bring itself into compliance with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking in persons receives a negative "Tier 3" assessment in this Report. Such an assessment could trigger the withholding of non-humanitarian, non-trade-related assistance from the United States to that country.

In assessing foreign governments’ efforts, the TIP Report highlights the "three P’s" - prosecution, protection, and prevention. But a victim-centered approach to trafficking requires us equally to address the "three R’s" - rescue, rehabilitation, and reintegration.

The law that guides these efforts, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA), makes clear from its first sentence that the purpose of combating human trafficking is to ensure just and effective punishment of traffickers, to protect their victims, and to prevent trafficking.

More than 140 years ago, the United States fought a devastating war to rid our country of slavery, and to prevent those who supported it from dividing the nation. Although the vast majority of nations succeeded in eliminating the state-sanctioned practice, a modern form of human slavery has emerged as a growing global threat to the lives and freedom of millions of men, women, and children. Today, slavery is rarely state-sponsored. Instead, human trafficking often involves organized crime groups who make huge sums of money at the expense of trafficking victims.

Every year we add to our knowledge of the trafficking phenomenon. In last year’s Report, we used U.S. Government data that disaggregated transnational trafficking in persons by age and gender for the first time. These data showed that, of the estimated 600,000 to 800,000 men, women, and children trafficked across international borders each year, approximately 80 percent are women and girls and up to 50 percent are minors. The data also illustrate that the majority of transnational victims are trafficked into commercial sexual exploitation.

With a focus on transnational trafficking in persons, however, these data fail to include millions of victims around the world who are trafficked within their own national borders.

The alarming enslavement of people for purposes of labor exploitation, often in their own countries, is a form of human trafficking that can be hard to track from afar. It may not involve the same criminal organizations profiting from transnational trafficking for sexual exploitation; more often individuals are guilty of, for example, enslaving one domestic servant or hundreds of unpaid, forced workers at a factory.

A wide range of estimates exists on the scope and magnitude of modern-day slavery. The International Labor Organization (ILO) - the United Nations (UN) agency charged with addressing labor standards, employment, and social protection issues - estimates that there are 12.3 million people enslaved in forced labor, bonded labor, forced child labor, sexual servitude, and involuntary servitude at any given time. The nationalities of these people are as diverse as the world’s cultures. Some leave developing countries, seeking to improve their lives through low-skilled jobs in more prosperous countries. Others fall victim to forced or bonded labor in their own countries. Some families give children to related or unrelated adults who promise education and opportunity - but deliver the children into slavery - for money.

Conventional approaches to dealing with forced or bonded labor usually focus on compliance, in line with international conventions (i.e., ILO Conventions 29, 39, and 182). These approaches seek to have exploitative industries comply with the law by simply releasing the victims or requiring compensation. Approaches to combating forced labor slavery that rely on labor standards can be weak in punishing the employers of forced or bonded laborers - the slave masters. Forced labor must be punished as a crime, through vigorous prosecutions. While most countries in the world have criminalized forced labor, they do little to prosecute offenders, in part due to lack of awareness of forced labor issues among law enforcement officials.

Over the next year, the Department of State intends to focus more attention on involuntary servitude and its related manifestations. This year, for the first time, several countries are placed on Tier 3 primarily as a result of their failure to address trafficking for forced labor.

Through the TVPA, this annual Report, strong leadership, enhanced government efforts, and increased attention from international organizations, NGOs, and the media, we are seeing a global effort building momentum to eliminate trafficking. Nations are increasingly working together to close trafficking routes, prosecute and convict traffickers, and protect and reintegrate trafficking victims. We hope this year’s Report inspires people to make even greater progress.

Albania (Tier 2)

Albania is a source country for women and children trafficked for the purposes of sexual exploitation and forced labor, largely to Greece and Italy, where many victims are then further transited to the United Kingdom, France and the Netherlands. Albanian children, especially ethnic Roma and Egyptian, continue to be trafficked externally for forced begging. Regional and international experts consider Albania to have significantly decreased as a transit country for trafficking in Western Europe.

The Government of Albania does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so. The government remained committed to monitoring and preventing trafficking at the country's main ports and produced successful interdictions. However, implementation of Albania's anti-trafficking tools remained inadequate and a critical area of concern. Greater, proactive steps in the areas of protection and reintegration are needed to ensure the safety of victims. The government must apply available laws and programs, in addition to improving prevention for vulnerable groups. Trafficking-related corruption must also be addressed.

Prosecution

In 2004, the Government of Albania continued to arrest, prosecute, and convict traffickers. Its courts prosecuted 132 traffickers and handed down 121 convictions. Commendably, over half of the sentences during the reporting period were over five years in length and 30 traffickers were sentenced to more than ten years, imprisonment. In September 2004, the government adopted legislation that includes broad civil asset forfeiture provisions, requiring the accused trafficker to prove the legitimacy of sources of wealth. Prosecutors, however, had yet to employ the forfeiture provisions. Serious resource constraints and corruption among government officials continued to hamper anti-trafficking efforts. The government continued to investigate police involvement in trafficking; in 2004, four police officers were investigated for offenses related to trafficking. The government did not prosecute or convict any officials for trafficking complicity during the reporting period.

Protection

The government provided some facilities and personnel to assist trafficking victims, and operates its own National Reception Center; NGOs have two additional shelters. The government has begun work on a national referral mechanism involving law enforcement, social services, and NGO partners to improve the initial identification, reception, protection, and reintegration procedures for returnee victims. Police slightly increased the number of ad hoc referrals made to shelters in Albania via IOM and NGOs. Police referred 274 victims to the Vatra Center, a leading NGO in Albania providing shelter and reintegration services to victims. Notably, a number of police directorates opened their own temporary shelters to accommodate trafficking victims. However, regulations necessary for the implementation of witness-protection measures adopted in 2003 have yet to be finalized. In 2004, the Government of Albania established a witness relocation program and adopted special witness protection provisions allowing for endangered witnesses in trafficking cases to testify via remote video link. The program remains unfunded.

Prevention

In 2004, the government conducted few prevention programs, and continued to reply primarily on NGOs and international organizations to carry out such activities. The Ministry of Education began to incorporate prevention activities into school curricula. In 2004, the government adopted a newly improved Strategic Framework and National Action Plan that outlines a comprehensive and targeted approach to trafficking. However, few aspects of the plan have been funded or initiated. In February 2005, the government also finalized its Child Trafficking Strategy and Action Plan.