A US State Department report on human trafficking has placed India on a Tier 2 'watch-list.'
WASHINGTON: A US State Department report on human trafficking has placed India on a Tier 2 'watch-list' because of what it said did exist bonded labour practices and the lack of adequate action to effectively end this.
Briefing reporters on the fifth annual report on Trafficking in Persons, released here on Monday, Director of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons John Miller said they estimate that hundreds of thousands of Indians were victims of a form of slavery wherein a family is indebted to an employer generation after generation.
The 'Tier 2 Watch-list' includes countries that show signs of falling backwards, but Miller said that 'W' also stood for 'worry' and 'warning'.
Four major nations on the watch-list for at least the second year in a row are China, India, Mexico and Russia.
'This has to be a source of concern,'' Miller said, predicting that the four nations could well slip to the least favourable Tier 3 by next year. A Tier 3 assessment could trigger the withholding of non-humanitarian, non-trade-related assistance from the United States to that country.
According to the report India has been placed on the watch-list for a second consecutive year for its inability to show evidence of increased efforts to address trafficking in persons, particularly its lack of progress in forming a national law enforcement response to inter-state and transnational trafficking crimes.
The government, the report said, also lacked a meaningful response to the significant problem of trafficking-related complicity of law enforcement officials. The central government needs to designate and empower a national law enforcement entity to carry out investigations and law enforcement operations against trafficking crimes with nation-wide jurisdiction, the report pointed out.
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