Bangladesh avoids US sanctions
Bangladesh has narrowly escaped US sanctions over humanitarian and non-trade related assistance as the country has been upgraded to an upper-tier in the US Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report 2020 launched by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo early yesterday.
"The [Bangladesh] government demonstrated overall increasing efforts compared to the previous reporting period; therefore Bangladesh was upgraded to Tier 2," said the report.
The TIP Report is an annual report issued by the US State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. It ranks governments based on their perceived efforts to acknowledge and combat human trafficking.
Bangladesh had been on Tier 2 Watch List from 2017 to 2019 in the report and was on the verge of being ranked Tier 3 this year. The TIP has four ranks -- Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 2 Watch List and Tier 3.
A country that is put on the Tier 2 Watch List for three consecutive years automatically downgrades to Tier 3 if it does not make significant efforts to combat trafficking.
As per the US law, countries on tier 3 could trigger severe restrictions and even full curtailment of non-humanitarian, non-trade-related assistance.
The report said Bangladesh resolved 25 cases related to human trafficking in 2019, up from only eight a year ago.
It also credited Bangladesh for identifying 585 potential victims during this period, which is 40 percent higher compared to the previous year.
Bangladesh set up seven anti-trafficking tribunals to handle the trafficking cases during this period, the report added.
"If we were ranked Tier 3, we would not have been able to get development assistance, soft loans from the World Bank or International Monetary Fund, exchange of officials for educational and cultural purposes and other problems," said Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen in a video message yesterday.
STILL ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT
The TIP report said though Bangladesh has been upgraded, the government did not meet the minimum standards in several key areas, including investigation of law enforcing agencies into trafficking cases and denial of the involvement of government officials even after credible reports.
"Despite widespread reports of child sex trafficking, including in licensed brothels, the government did not make efforts to identify victims or investigate the persistent reports," it said.
The TIP report said the Bureau of Manpower and Employment Training forced some migrant workers to arbitrate labour violations with their exploitative recruitment agencies. The government continued to allow employers to charge high recruitment fees from the migrant workers.
As several government officials and parliamentarians maintained close ties to overseas employment agencies, there were concerns such officials had conflicts of interest in approving migrant-friendly practices including prosecuting abusive recruitment agencies, it also said.
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