The United States Department of State’s 2010 Trafficking in Persons Report is a must-read (or perhaps a must-skim) for people in the human trafficking community. Until you get the chance to read its 50+ pages of color and victims’ stories followed by 300+ pages of dense tables and analysis, here are our top 10 take-aways:

1. For the first time ever, the United States included itself in the TIP Report (we consider ourselves Tier 1). There are 4 victim-story boxes on trafficking and the U.S., one of which involved a U.S. citizen trafficked internally, and the country analysis in the data section.
2. Presumably because of the U.S.’s inclusion, the 2010 report makes clear that “While Tier 1 is the highest ranking, it does not mean that a country has no human trafficking problem. On the contrary, a Tier 1 ranking indicates that a government has acknowledged the existence of human trafficking, has made efforts to address the problem, and meets the TVPA’s minimum standards. [...] Indeed,Tier 1 represents a responsibility rather than a reprieve.”
3. In her release speech this morning, Secretary Clinton added a 4th P (partnership) to the TIP Report’s usual 3 (trafficking prevention, criminal prosecution, and victim protection), and emphasized the important of partnerships between nations and between nations and NGOs.
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My last blog was about the 9th annual global Trafficking in Persons Report rolled out this week by the Secretary of State.   One of the most important aspects of the rollout is not the Report.  It’s the concurrent Report on the fight against human trafficking within the United States compiled by the Attorney-General. [Read more →]

This week Secretary of State Clinton and my successor as anti-trafficking ambassador, former anti-slavery prosecutor Luis CdeBaca, rolled out the annual Trafficking in Persons Report. The rollout embodied the bipartisan and inter-branch support of the anti-slavery issue which I experienced as ambassador. This report is an invaluable tool to nudge and prod other governments to improve their records fighting slavery. Whether they had a welcoming or grousing response, governments focused on their anti-trafficking efforts after reading the report. At the UN world conference on human trafficking in Vienna in February 2008, I heard dozens consider it rightly the state-of-the-art global report, like no other. [Read more →]

In a few days, a group of non-government organizations will be meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about a serious human trafficking matter: the veritable enslavement of some domestic servants by diplomats.  On our soil. [Read more →]

Political prisoner in North Korea

The world rightly is concerned about how the North Korean regime continues to threaten its neighbors with its nuclear capability and, more recently, missiles to deliver them.  However, it is no less urgent to consider how that same regime threatens the security of its own people.  It is all a piece of a North Korean government threatening people’s welfare. [Read more →]

This spring is an exciting time at Polaris Project and at many of our partner organizations in the anti-trafficking field because we feel that the movement against human trafficking is gaining momentum.  There’s an increasing sense that more people are becoming aware that modern-day slavery is present in our communities.  It’s great to see when people are motivated to fight against human trafficking once they learn about it.  Learn, get outraged, resolve to take action…and do something.  That’s how movements are built and sustained. [Read more →]