The US Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report 2022, which came out yesterday, moved Sri Lanka up to Tier 2. (19).
In a statement, the Ministry of Defense, which is the Chair of Sri Lanka’s National Anti-Human Trafficking Task Force (NAHTTF), announced the latest rankings.
Sri Lanka has been on the Tier 2 Watch List for the last three years, which makes people worried that it could be moved down to Tier 3 and have US aid and aid from multilateral development banks limited.
The US Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) requires that the Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report be made. It is called the U.S. Government’s main diplomatic tool to talk to other countries about human trafficking.
The Defense Ministry said that it is also known as the most complete resource in the world for government efforts to stop trafficking.
Even though the US Department of State says that Sri Lanka’s government doesn’t fully meet the minimum standards for ending trafficking (which are needed to be in Tier 1), it also says that the country is making a lot of efforts to do so and that these efforts are getting better overall compared to the last reporting period. This is because the COVID-19 pandemic has hurt Sri Lanka’s ability to fight traffic.
The NAHTTF is made up of senior officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Labour, the Attorney General’s Department, the former State Ministry of Foreign Employment, Promotion and Market Diversification, the State Ministry of Women and Child Development, the Ministry of Tourism, the State Ministry of Samurdhi, the National Child Protection Authority, and the Human Trafficking, Smuggling, and Maritime Crimes Investigation Division of the Criminal Investigation Department.
The TIP Report also has a list of recommendations in order of importance. The NAHTTF is fully committed to achieving these recommendations because they are aimed at ending the horrible crime of human trafficking in our country.
