Bangladesh remains in Tier 2

Bangladesh has retained its spot among Tier 2 countries in the United States’ 2022 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report, after making key progress to combat human trafficking by increasing investigations, prosecutions and convictions against human traffickers.

The US State Department made the observation in the 22nd edition of the report published on its website on Tuesday.

However, the Bangladesh government is yet to fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking. There is still much work to be done to identify and care for trafficking victims and eliminate the exploitation of labourers seeking to work overseas, said the report.

The report also included 18 priority recommendations for Bangladesh — ranging from increasing prosecutions and expanding victim services to enhancing law enforcement training and collaborating across borders.

According to the TIP Report, the Tier 2 countries are assessed as not fully meeting the minimum standards maintained in the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 of the US, but making significant efforts to meet them.

Bangladesh moved from Tier 3 watch list to Tier 2 watch list in 2020. The Tier 3 countries are assessed as not fully meeting the minimum standards and not making significant efforts to do so.

The TIP Report broke down the issues in every country in four parts — prosecution, protection, prevention and trafficking profile.

It identified several key laps in Bangladesh’s efforts, including the government allowing recruitment agencies to charge higher fees, not being consistent in identifying dalals (brokers) and their illegal activities, having no uniformly employing standard operating procedures (SOPs) to identify trafficking victims, and not to ensure proper policy that compels victims to go through civil arbitration before initiating criminal investigations.

It mentioned that while the country is continuing to increase and strengthen prosecution efforts, the government decreased protection efforts. As a result, it identified fewer potential victims than in the previous reporting period and maintained severely inadequate victim protection, especially for Bangladeshi victims identified overseas. The report also said that the Covid-19 pandemic’s effects resulted in increased vulnerability for a wider segment of Bangladeshi society, leaving poorly educated and unemployed youths and students, people affected by natural disasters and climate change, and people attempting to go abroad through irregular migration into more vulnerability.

It recommended adopting formal victim identification procedures and screening processes to prevent penalisation of potential victims, improve case registration, and increase investigations and prosecutions of credible allegations of trafficking of the Rohingyas, including cases that do not involve movement.

It also called for adopting unified SOPs and suggested, for compliance, fully implementing and monitoring the registration requirements for recruitment agents and brokers who supply labourers to recruiting agencies.

Officials from US Embassy in Dhaka said for the last two years Bangladesh has been well on track to ensuring an anti-trafficking system in the country. But they still have a lot to do a lot and those are mentioned in the report.