Those who followed the life and death of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) are well aware that the State Department’s annual assessment of human trafficking can be highly politicized.
In 2015, the department upgraded Malaysia to “Tier 2” from “Tier 3,” shortly after Congress forbade the President from negotiating the TPP with countries given the latter designation, in the Trafficking in Persons report (TIP). Not long after, Reuters revealed that officials appointed by President Obama had fought with career TIP bureaucrats on tier rankings–with an intensity never before seen, in the initiative’s 15-year lifespan.
“The number of rejected recommendations suggests a degree of intervention not previously known by diplomats in a report that can lead to sanctions and is the basis for many countries’ anti-trafficking policies,” the wire service noted. Malaysia was among the “14 strategically important countries” on which officials clashed.
But on Monday, a report published by the Government Accountability Office revealed that the country tier rankings themselves mask the true stance taken by the United States towards places where systemic labor abuses occur.
“The President has issued full or partial waivers for many of the governments subject to the restrictions,” GAO noted, in its investigation. “For example, as previously discussed, 21 of the 23 countries ranked Tier 3 in 2015 received a full or partial waiver.” The report added that officials “raised questions about the efficacy of the funding restrictions” associated with Tier 3 rankings.
Of the 21 countries that received exemptions from Tier 3 restrictions in 2015, thirteen of them were granted full waivers.
“For example, Thailand received a full waiver of the [statutory] restriction on nonhumanitarian, nontrade-related foreign assistance,” the investigation remarked.
State officials told GAO that rankings themselves brought reputational damage that countries seek to avoid. They also pointed out that the US law cannot “prevent a country in Tier 3 from obtaining multilateral assistance” through organizations like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.
If the mere stigma associated with downgrades and low rankings are enough to change the behavior of bad actors, however, State Department officials struggle to explain why this is the case. Monday’s report also noted that TIP fails to justify its own tier ranking system.
In one instance, this appears to have been done in contravention of laws on transparency–those requiring State to justify why they have allowed a country to remain on the Tier 2 watchlist for more than two years, when federal law dictates they should be downgraded.
“The Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) requires State to post a detailed description of the credible evidence used to support these waivers on its website annually,” GAO noted, “but State did not do so for the 2014 through 2016 reports until September 2016.”
GAO also found, in an analysis of publicly-written reports, that State employs language that doesn’t reflect why countries received new assessments.
“Our analysis showed that, of the 82 countries upgraded or downgraded in 2015 or 2016, 7 (9 percent) of the country narratives explicitly explained why the country’s tier ranking changed,” the comptroller noted. “[H]owever, none of the remaining 75 country narratives explicitly explained why the country’s tier ranking changed.”
“The only country narratives with an explicit explanation were for those countries subject to the TVPA automatic downgrade provision,” GAO added.
The watchdog had been tasked with investigating the Trafficking in Persons report, well before the Malaysia bust-up–one the sparked angry reactions from committees of jurisdiction in both the House and Senate. Appropriations legislation passed in 2013 ordered GAO “to review the report’s preparation and effectiveness.”
“State and other officials indicate that the Trafficking in Persons Report can be a useful tool to engage other countries about trafficking but State has not systematically assessed the report’s effectiveness,” the report concluded. “As a result, the effect of the report in encouraging governments to make progress in combating trafficking is not well understood.”
