Russia and China Angered by US Report on World’s Worst Human Trafficking Effort
Russia and China were angered by the US report published on Wednesday, alleging Russia and China among the world's most relaxed country to combat forced labor and sex trafficking. The report also hinted that two countries might receive sanctions from the US in the coming months.
Russia
In an official statement published by Russia's Foreign Ministry, the country accused US of employing "unacceptable methodology" with its report on human trafficking. The statement alleged that the US labeled the different countries as world's worst fighter against sex forced labor and sex trafficking basing solely on the countries' compassion with Washington.
According to the statement, "In fighting organized crime, including countering trafficking, Russian authorities will never follow instructions worked out in another country, let alone fulfill conditions presented nearly in the form of ultimatum."
Russia warned that it will not surrender to any future sanctions.
The US report stated that Russia was futile in coming up of effective safeguards for victims of trafficking. It said that Russia was as lenient as improvising laws on human trafficking but "had not established any concrete system for the identification or care of trafficking victims, lacking any formal victim identification and referral mechanism."
China
Meanwhile, in Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said that washinton "should take an objective and impartial view of China's efforts, and stop making unilateral; or arbitrary judgments of China. China has achieved remarkable progress in fighting domestic and transactional trafficking."
According to the US reports, China was reluctant to combat all forms of human trafficking and failed to punish human traffickers. Although the report acknowledged China's effort to raise awareness and work with international organizations, the report said that the country mainly focused on continuing cases of child and adult forced labour and sex trafficking of women and girls.
The report said, "Despite these modest signs of interest in anti-trafficking reforms, the Chinese government did not demonstrate significant efforts to comprehensively prohibit and punish all forms of trafficking and to prosecute traffickers."
The report also alleged that trafficking is proliferated in China's internal migrant population. It also criticized China's one-child-policy saying that it produced more boys than girls resulting to demands for prostitution and foreign brides.
The Sanction
Other countries included in the report and labeled as Tier Three countries were Algeria, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Guinea-Bissau, Kuwait, Libya, Mauritania, Papua New Guinea, Saudi Arabia, Syria nad Yemen.
Under the US law, those countries listed as Tier 3 might undergo sanction such as withholding foreign aid. However the sanction will not include humanitarian assistance, educational and cultural funding.
John Sifton, Asia Advocacy director for Human Rights Watch said that, "The question for the White House is whether they're prepared to execute the sanctions. The question for China and Russia is whether they're prepared to make commitments in the next 90 days to avoid those sanctions."
Mr. Sifton said that more countries became lenient in their efforts to fight human trafficking rather than improve their ways and laws to combat the problem.