Human trafficking generates $150b in profit annually

Human trafficking generates $150 billion in profit annually for the traffickers, an official of the US State Department said on Thursday.
There are an estimated 25 million people subjected to human trafficking, the official, preferring not to be named, told the FE while highlighting the challenges of the problem.
The US government is going to publish the Trafficking in Persons Report 2022 next week, he revealed, saying that this would be the 22nd time the US was releasing the report, covering 188 countries, including the United States.
The report is crucial to the countries, which performed badly in eliminating human trafficking, as the US has a policy to restrict some of its assistance to those countries. The report highlights areas of progress, promising best practices, and also gaps.
"You'll see that countries are ranked in three separate tiers," the official said.
The first tier is for countries that are fully meeting the minimum standard to eliminate trafficking.
The second tier includes the countries that are not meeting the minimum standard to eliminate trafficking, but are making significant efforts to meet the standard.
There are some other countries that are neither meeting the minimum standard nor trying to meet the minimum standard - these countries belong to tier 3.
Asked about the position of Bangladesh, the official declined to make a comment but pointed out that the country might be in between tier 2 and tier 3.
"There is a sort of watch list. We call it the tier 2 watch list. And that is for countries that have been going in the wrong direction and may be relegated to tier 3," said the official.
"And that's where Bangladesh was from 2017 to 2019. And then in 2020, they graduated to tier 2, so that was positive, very positive improvement. And you'll have to wait to see next week's report to see what tier Bangladesh is in this year."
Countries that are on tier 2 watch list are in danger of being downgraded to tier 3 and that comes with some very serious ramifications. Countries in tier 3 have restrictions placed on the funding for non humanitarian and non trade related foreign assistance.
"So it can cut off a lot of the assistance the US can provide to a country if a country goes down to tier 3," the official said.
"The Trafficking in Persons Report is the world's most comprehensive report on …anti-trafficking efforts, and reflects our commitment…to global leadership on this human rights issue," he said.
The US government produces the report because in 2000, Congress passed the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000. And that requires the Secretary of State at the Department of State to submit a report every single year to Congress on human trafficking.
The report is prepared based on material sent to the US embassy by foreign governments.
"So a lot of what you'll see in the report comes directly from the Government of Bangladesh. We can talk more about that in the question and answer session at the end," the official added.
mirmostafiz@yahoo.com