In its annual report about human trafficking, the United States has once again said that in Afghanistan complicity of officials remains a serious problem.
The Trafficiking in Persons report, published by U.S. Department of State, includes 188 countries placed in three categories based on their efforts to tackle the menace.
Since 2001, Afghanistan has made improvements on human trafficking – it has climbed to tier 2 from tier 3 in that year – meaning though they do not fully comply with the Trafficking Victims Protection Act’s minimum standards but are making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with those standards.
It said that trafficking in Afghanistan, which is happening for forced labor and sex, is more of internal than transnational. Also, majority of Afghan trafficking victims are children who end up in carpet making and brick factories, domestic servitude, commercial sexual exploitation, begging and as such within Afghanistan as well as in the Middle East, Europe and South Asia.
While the said in Iran, trafficking victims are more of boys subjected to forced labor, In Pakistan, it said there are more of women and girls who are subjected to prostitution.
“Some Afghan families knowingly sell their children into prostitution, including for bacha baazi—where men, sometimes including government officials and security forces, use young boys for social and sexual entertainment,” it explained.
It also noted that there were imports to Afghanistan from Philippines, Pakistan, Iran, Tajikistan, Sri Lanka, China Nepal and India.
The report appreciated the Afghan government for increased conviction of offenders under the traffic law, however, “the government’s prosecution and victim protection efforts remained inadequate.”
Calling official complicity a serious problem, it recommended to the government to increase prosecutions and convictions and cease penalization of victims for offenses committed as a direct result of being subjected to trafficking.
Citing a report by Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, the report said that majority of those who engage in bacha baazi or boy play pay bribes to or have relationships with law enforcement, prosecutors, or judges that effectively exempt them from prosecution.
Also it cited how officials raped sex trafficking victims where government did not report any prosecution.
On other countries, the 2015 report carried that Cuba, Kenya and Saudi Arabia are doing better at fighting human trafficking, while Egypt, Ghana and Bulgaria are doing worse.