Context: According to the Trafficking in Persons report 2021, released by the US State Department, the Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in an increase in vulnerability to human trafficking and interrupted existing anti-traffic efforts.
About Trafficking in Persons report

• Trafficking in Persons is an annual report released by the U.S State Department since 2001.

Ranking: The report ranks countries in tiers based on their compliance with the minimum standard for eliminating human trafficking:

• Tier 1: It includes governments that wholly meet the minimum standards.
• Tier 2: It includes governments that do not meet the requirements but are making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance.
• Tier 2 watchlist: It includes countries where the number of victims of trafficking is increasing and they fail to provide evidence of increasing efforts to combat trafficking.
• Tier 3: These are countries that do not fully meet minimum standards and are not making significant efforts to do so. Being ranked in this tier means countries may be subject to certain restrictions on foreign assistance.

Key Takeaways
Tier 3 Countries

• Twelve countries were found to have a policy or pattern of human trafficking, resulting in these countries being assigned a ‘Tier 3’ rating.
• These 12 countries are Afghanistan, Burma, China, Cuba, Eritrea, North Korea, Iran, Russia, South Sudan, Syria, and Turkmenistan.

Report on India

• India was put under the Tier 2 category. The report said that India did not meet the minimum standards to eliminate trafficking, but was making significant efforts.

Positives for India: India has taken steps such as

• Allocated funding for the strengthening of Anti-Human Trafficking Units (AHTUs) around the country, including establishing women help desks in 10,000 police stations across the country.
• Identifying more victims of Human trafficking and prosecuting more cases.
• Indian courts expanded the use of video testimony for trafficking victims during the pandemic.

Negatives for India

• Poor success rate in convictions in human trafficking cases. The acquittal rate for traffickers in India remained high at 73%.
• Inadequate steps, especially against bonded labor.
• Efforts to audit government-run or -funded shelters remained inadequate.
• Many victims waited years to receive central-government-mandated compensation.