2007 Trafficking in Persons Report - Center for Women Policy Studies

I N T R O D U C T I O N
“Human trafficking is a
modern-day slave trade.
It violates fundamental
human rights and exploits
innocent people.”
— Sheikha Haya Rashed Al Khalifa,
President of the UN General Assembly
Trafficking of Migrant Laborers:
The Onus on Source Governments
The 2005 and 2006 TIP Reports focused attention on the conditions
faced by many migrant workers legally contracted to perform low-skilled
work in developed countries but who were later subjected to fraudulent
misrepresentation of work conditions, debt bondage, or forced labor
conditions at the hands of employers in destination countries. This attention
has been focused largely on the responsibilities of destination countries
where the most obvious forms of exploitation take place. These forms of
exploitation include physical abuse, sexual abuse, physical restraint,
psychological coercion, confiscation of identify and travel documents,
and abuse of immigration laws.
Governments of destination countries for migrant workers have a
special obligation to ensure that those workers are not subjected to
servitude. Therefore, where credible reports have indicated significant
and inadequately addressed servitude of migrant workers, those
destination countries are generally rated in Tier 2 Watch List or Tier 3.
This focus on the need to protect migrant workers from modern-day
forms of slavery will continue.
Increasingly, however, research is showing that source countries
permit or encourage some exploitative practices that either place
migrant workers in involuntary servitude before they leave for work
abroad, or place them in unfair debts that are precursors to involuntary
servitude in the destination country. Governments of major source countries of
migrant workers have obligations too—obligations to protect these workers’
interests by limiting pre-departure fees and “commissions” to reasonable levels
that do not contribute to situations of debt bondage. Source countries should
negotiate agreements with destination countries to obtain formal guarantees of
their citizen’s rights while working abroad. Also, source countries should provide
a “safety net” of consular officers, legal aid, and ensured access to shelters
for workers, should they face conditions of involuntary servitude abroad. This
Report sheds new light on the exploitative practices found in some source
countries and holds governments in those countries accountable for failing to
curb abuses. l
Children are forced to fish the dangerous waters of Lake Volta in the Yeji region of Ghana.
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