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 Human rights groups called for an investigation into why
strategically important countries such as Malaysia and Cuba were
upgraded from the list of worst offenders in human trafficking,
after a Reuters article chronicled how senior U.S. diplomats
repeatedly overruled State Department human rights experts.
The State Department denied that the country-by-country ratings in
the latest report had been politicized.
“I have a number of serious concerns about the State Department’s
human trafficking report,” said Republican U.S. Senator Bob Corker,
who will chair a Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Thursday to
review the 2015 global assessment.
“If it is true that the administration politicized this report, they
must immediately answer a number of questions about why they chose
to significantly diminish a tool that has been effective in fighting
slavery around the world,” he added.
Democratic Senator Bob Menendez, who also sits on the panel said:
“If true, the Reuters report further confirms what I, along with the
human rights community, have feared all along: The State
Department’s trafficking report has been blatantly and intentionally
politicized.”
Lawmakers will question Sarah Sewall, who oversees the
anti-trafficking office as undersecretary of State for Civilian
Security, Democracy and Human Rights.
A Reuters examination, based on interviews with more than a dozen
sources in Washington and foreign capitals, showed that the State
Department office set up to independently grade global efforts to
fight human trafficking was pressured into inflating assessments of
14 countries in this year’s report.
Among the countries that received higher rankings than recommended
by the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons were
Malaysia, Cuba, China, India, Uzbekistan and Mexico, the sources
said.
STATE DEPARTMENT: 'WE STAND BY THE PROCESS'
Amy Sobel, vice president of Human Rights First’s anti-trafficking
campaign, said Reuters' findings pointed to broader political
interference, which risked "eroding the effectiveness" of the report
and undermining international efforts.
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State Department spokesman Mark Toner insisted the rankings are
decided through “rigorous analysis” and said, "We stand by the
process." But he acknowledged that allegations of political bias
could damage perceptions of the report's credibility.
Analysts in the anti-trafficking office disagreed with U.S.
diplomatic bureaus on ratings for 17 countries, the sources said.
The analysts, who are specialists in assessing efforts to combat
modern slavery, won only three of those disputes, the worst ratio in
the 15-year history of the unit.
The number of rejected recommendations suggests a degree of
intervention not previously known by top State Department diplomats
in a report that can lead to sanctions.
The analysts' recommendation to downgrade China, the world's
second-biggest economy, to the worst ranking was overruled despite
the final report's conclusion that Beijing did not undertake
increased anti-trafficking efforts in the past year.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry, asked about the Reuters story, said
Beijing was "resolute" in the fight against human trafficking. But
it chided the United States for "thoughtless remarks" and for
grading other countries' efforts.
Malaysia's upgrade from the lowest grade could smooth the way for an
ambitious proposed U.S.-led free-trade deal with the Southeast Asian
nation and 11 other countries.
(Additional reporting by Patricia Zengerle in Washington and Ben
Blanchard in Beijing; Writing by Matt Spetalnick)
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