2007 Trafficking in Persons Report - Center for Women Policy Studies

J O R D A N
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ing efforts in Thailand and the Philippines. Because
Japan’s Diet has not ratified the umbrella UN
Transnational Organized Crime Convention, Japan
has not officially ratified the 2000 UN TIP Protocol.
JORDAN (Tier 2)
Jordan is a destination and transit country for
women and men from South and Southeast Asia
trafficked for the purpose of labor exploitation.
Women from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and
the Philippines migrate willingly to work as domestic
servants, but some are subjected to conditions
of involuntary servitude, including withholding
of passports and other restrictions on movement,
extended working hours, non-payment of wages,
threats, and physical or sexual abuse. In addition,
Chinese, Indian, Sri Lankan, and Bangladeshi men
and women face conditions of involuntary servitude
in factories in Jordan’s Qualified Industrial
Zones (QIZs); these workers encounter similar
conditions of forced labor, including withholding
of passports, non-payment of wages, extended
working hours, lack of access to food, water, and
medical care, and physical or sexual abuse. Jordan
may serve as a transit country for South and
Southeast Asian men deceptively recruited with
fraudulent job offers in Jordan but instead trafficked
to work involuntarily in Iraq.
The Government of Jordan does not fully comply
with the minimum standards for the elimination of
trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts
to do so. Though the government made noticeable
efforts under its labor laws to investigate trafficking
offenses, Jordan failed to criminally punish recruitment
agents or factory managers who induced workers
into involuntary servitude. In May, the Ministry of
Labor established a Directorate for Foreign Domestic
Workers, and in November, the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs appointed an anti-trafficking in persons
coordinator in the Human Rights Directorate. The
government should continue to enforce existing laws
that address trafficking-related offenses. The government
should ensure that victims are adequately
protected and not deported, detained or otherwise
punished as a result of being trafficked or having
reported a crime committed against them.
Prosecution
During the reporting period, Jordan took insufficient
steps to criminally punish trafficking
offenses. Jordan does not specifically prohibit all
forms of trafficking in persons, but the government
prohibits slavery through its Anti-Slavery Law of
1929. Prescribed penalties of up to three years’
imprisonment under this statute, however, are not
sufficiently stringent or adequately reflective of the
heinous nature of the crime. The government can
use statutes against kidnapping, assault, and rape
to prosecute abuses committed against foreign
workers. The penalties that perpetrators are subject
to under all the laws can be sufficiently deterrent if
properly enforced.
This past year, the government reported receiving
40 complaints filed by foreign domestic workers for
physical or sexual abuse by their employers, but of
these cases, only two employers were convicted; the
sentences imposed were only two to three months’
imprisonment. Seven employers were found
innocent, one case was dropped, and another 24
cases are still pending in courts. Despite well-documented
evidence of serious cases of forced labor or
involuntary servitude in the QIZs, the government
responded primarily administrative penalties; labor
inspectors cited 1,113 violations, issued 338 warnings,
and closed eight factories permanently. Only
three factory managers were criminally prosecuted
for abusing workers, and none were adequately
punished. Twenty police officers were trained this
year in anti-trafficking techniques. Jordan should
significantly increase criminal prosecutions for trafficking
offenses.
Protection
Jordan made modest efforts to protect trafficking
victims this year. The government neither encourages
victims to assist in investigations against their
traffickers nor provides them with legal alternatives
to removal to countries in which they may face
hardship or retribution. Foreign domestic workers
who run away from their employers are sometimes
falsely charged by their employers. In addition,
victims of sexual assault, including foreign domestic
workers, may be put into “protective custody”
that often amounts to detention. Jordan does not
operate a shelter for trafficking victims. In the QIZs,
the government moved 3,000 workers who were
identified as trafficking victims into better working
conditions; nonetheless, none of these victims were
provided with medical or psychological assistance.
Prevention
Jordan made notable progress in preventing trafficking
in persons this year. The Ministry of Labor, in
collaboration with UNIFEM and the Adaleh Center
for Human Rights, launched a media campaign to
increase awareness of trafficking of foreign domestic
workers. In addition, Jordan and UNIFEM estab-