By Charlene Porter
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- The U.S. State Department July 12 released a Congressionally-mandated Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report, offering a nation-by-nation account on the commerce in human beings and what governments are doing to combat it.

"It is incomprehensible that trafficking in persons should be taking place in the 21st century. But it is true, very true," said Secretary of State Colin Powell in a press briefing held at the State Department.

The report was compiled as a requirement of the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act 2000, and Powell said it will serve as the basis for further international action to clamp down on what the report calls a "modern-day form of slavery."

Powell said an interagency task force is being formed within the U.S. government to find ways that law enforcement, workplace regulators, border control officials and others can work together "to put an end to this abomination against humanity."

On the international level, action will be necessary from every country to put a stop to trafficking, according to Under Secretary for Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky. The report estimates that 700,000 persons are victims of trafficking worldwide every year, even though the document acknowledges that accurate figures are hard to attain for this covert activity. Trafficking in persons has been an expanding criminal enterprise since the mid-1990s.

On the basis of the findings in the TIP report, Dobriansky said the United States will open talks with other nations and urge them to take steps defined by the Trafficking Act of 2000 as "minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking." Dobriansky said the U.S. will conduct this campaign against trafficking "bilaterally, regionally, globally."

The report reviews trafficking activities in 82 nations. Those nations not included were considered to have an insignificant level of trafficking or insufficient information available to evaluate the situation.

In keeping with the Trafficking Act of 2000, the TIP report categorizes nations in one of three tiers. The first tier is made up of nations that have met the minimum standards and are making efforts to eliminate trafficking, prosecute the perpetrators, protect the victims and educate the public about this criminal activity.

The second tier comprises those nations that have not met the minimum standards, but are making progress in doing so. The third tier is reserved for those nations that don't meet the standards, and are not making significant efforts to do so.

"This report is not a discussion of which country has the greatest widespread trafficking problem, or where the most number of cases of trafficking exist, but rather it is a review of what governments are doing to fight the problem," said Dobriansky.

Nor does the report attempt to quantify the number of victims or perpetrators in each country. Assistant Secretary for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs Rand Beers said the TIP report was not meant to be a "comparative tool." Emphasis on the numbers was not considered a productive method for moving nations to take action to better control the crime and protect the victims, he said.

The compilation of the report itself may be prompting some nations toward action, Dobriansky said. As U.S. embassy and consulate personnel around the world met with government officials to gather information, Dobriansky said, "there were a number of cases" in which government officials gained a new understanding of the scope and the severity of this criminal enterprise and initiated new actions in prevention and prosecution.

Beers said the TIP report has been compiled in concert with mounting international alarm about the commerce in human beings. "There is more legislative attention" to the problem in nations around the world, Beers said, and he predicted that the level of cooperation in the search for solutions will increase in response to the State Department findings.

In addition, State Department officials cited the importance of the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children as another factor motivating nations to take stronger action to stop the problem. The United States and 80 other nations signed the protocol in December 2000.

In this climate of growing concern, Beers said, "We become more and more aware of how global a problem this is." While much of the attention has focused on the trafficking of women and children into the sex industry, he emphasized that trafficking also includes forced labor and debt bondage. Fraud, deception and coercion are the common characteristics of trafficking crimes, Dobriansky noted.

This is the first time the State Department has compiled the Trafficking in Persons Report, but Congress has called for preparation of the document annually. The law also states that by 2003 those countries that are classified in Tier 3 could become subject to sanctions on humanitarian and financial aid.

In conducting the global survey of trafficking, the State Department report does not overlook this criminal activity in the United States itself. It estimates that 45,000 to 50,000 people are trafficked to this country each year. Beers emphasized that the new interagency task force will evaluate whether U.S. governmental bodies at the national, state and local levels are taking adequate steps to combat the trafficking in human beings.