The Global Realities of Human Trafficking

We've all heard the notion that slavery is a blemish on American history; while that is true, it is inaccurate. Slavery is still very prevalent in the United States and other countries around the world. Human trafficking, commonly referred to as modern day slavery, is the illegal trade in beings for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation or forced labor. The buying and selling of human beings is an extremely lucrative business, second only to drug trafficking as the most profitable illegal industry in the world. . 

The U.S. Department of State conducted a Trafficking In Persons (TIP) Report for 2012 which classifies the worlds nations into five categories  Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 2 Watch List,Tier 3, and Special Cases. Below are the definitions for each category and the statistics showing how many countries qualify for each classification.


Tier 1- Countries whose governments fully comply with the Trafficking Victims Protection Act's (TVPA) minimum standards.

Tier 2- Countries whose governments do not fully comply with the TVPA's minimum standards, but are making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with those standards.

Tier 2 Watch List- Countries whose governments do not fully comply with the TVPA's minimum standards, but are making significant efforts to bring themselves into complacence with those standards AND:
a) The absolute number of victims of sever forms of trafficking is very significant or is significantly increasing.
b) There is a failure to provide evidence of increasing efforts to combat severe forms of trafficking in persons from the previous year; or
c) The determination that a country is making significant efforts to bring itself into compliance with minimum standards is based on commitments by the country to take additional future steps over the next year.

Tier 3- Countries whose governments do not comply with the TVPA's minimum standards and are making no efforts to do so.

Special Cases- No definition given. 


Tier 1- 33 countries
Tier 2- 93 countries
Tier 2WL- 42 countries
Tier 3- 17 countries
Special Case- 1

186 countries were listed in the TIP Report and of those only 33 fully comply with the minimum standards set by the Trafficking Victims Protection Act.That means that, despite the level of effort to comply, 153 countries do not fully abide by the TVPA's minimum standards. According to The United Nations there are 7 billion people populating this planet as of October 2011. Only taking into consideration simple calculations and overall populous averages, approximately 83% of the world is not in compliance with the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. That means that approximately 5,810,000,000 people do not have the assurance of being protected by their governments if they were to become victims of human trafficking. 


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