Apart from Saudi Arabia and the Central American nation of Belize, the list
of 12 violators reads like a catalog of nations at perpetual odds with the Bush
administration: Myanmar, Cuba, Iran, Laos, North Korea, Sudan, Syria,
Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Zimbabwe.
The Venezuelan Embassy accused the Bush administration of ignoring the
country's "many efforts" to combat trafficking. It said the designation was an
attempt to isolate and antagonize the country's leftist government.
Countries that fail to crack down on trafficking can be subject to a variety
of sanctions, including the withholding of some kinds of U.S. foreign aid. The
United States will not cut off trade and humanitarian aid, the report said.
Countries that receive no such assistance can be declared ineligible to
participate in cultural and educational exchange programs.
Three countries have been sanctioned since the reports began _ Cambodia,
Equatorial Guinea and Venezuela.
The State Department listed 32 other countries, including allies such as
Mexico, India and Kuwait, and important world powers including China and Russia,
on a "watch list" of problem nations where the record of prevention and
prosecution is mixed.
Rep. Christopher Smith, a Republican author of the 2000 law that established
the annual trafficking reports, said the Bush administration went too easy on
India by placing it on the watch list instead of among the dozen worst
offenders. The report cites child and forced labor and forced marriages as
abuses in India.
Smith cited India's "blatant unwillingness to address the massive problems of
bonded labor and trafficking-related corruption" and said its ranking "reeks of
political considerations within the State Department overriding the facts about
human trafficking."
"I am not pleased" by the relatively mild Bush administration rebuke to
Germany, Smith said. He held a hearing last month at which women's rights
advocates said potentially 40,000 women and children, most from Eastern Europe,
could be imported to serve men visiting Germany during the four-week tournament
that begins Friday.
Germany's sex-industry entrepreneurs say they expect a boom during the
32-nation tournament. At the 40-bedroom Artemis brothel, which opened in Berlin
last fall, manager Egbert Krumeich predicted business could double or triple
from its usual 130 customers a day.
Germany has about 400,000 registered sex workers who pay taxes and receive
social benefits. However, the government says forced prostitution is not
tolerated.
