The Obama administration has placed the Lebanese government on a blacklist for not fully complying with the minimum standards for the elimination of human trafficking and not making significant efforts to do so.
In its annual Trafficking in Persons report, the State Department identified 23 nations as failing to meet minimum international standards to curb the scourge, which claims mainly women and children as victims. That's up from 13 in 2010.
The 11 new countries on the blacklist or the so-called Tier 3 are Algeria, the Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Lebanon, Libya, Madagascar, Micronesia, Turkmenistan, Venezuela and Yemen.
Governments of countries on the Tier 3 may be subject to certain sanctions, whereby the U.S. government may withhold or withdraw non-humanitarian, non-trade-related foreign assistance. In addition, countries on Tier 3 may not receive funding for government employees’ participation in educational and cultural exchange programs.
“Lebanon is a source and destination country for women and children who are subjected to forced labor and sex trafficking. The country may also be a transit point for Eastern European women and children destined for sex trafficking in other Middle Eastern countries,” said the report.
Another 41 countries were placed on a watch list that could lead to sanctions unless their records improve.
The report analyzed conditions in 184 nations, including the United States, and ranked them in terms of their effectiveness in fighting what many have termed modern-day slavery. The State Department estimates that as many as 27 million men, women and children are living in such bondage around the world.
"All countries can and must do more," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in presenting the report on Monday. "More human beings are being exploited today than ever before."
"We're at critical moment in this fight," she said. "The problem of modern trafficking may be entrenched, and it may seem like there is no end in sight. But if we act on the laws that have been passed and the commitments that have been made, it is solvable. If we increase the pressure on traffickers and the networks they thrive in, we can set ourselves on a course to one day eradicate modern slavery."(AP-Naharnet)
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