WASHINGTON — A leading US lawmaker on Thursday urged President Barack Obama's administration to ratchet up pressure on China and India over sex-trafficking and modern day slavery that flourishes in both countries.
Congressman Christopher Smith, who led the charge for the landmark 2000 law Trafficking Victims Protection Act, said the two Asian giants were among the world's worst offenders in their disregard for forced bondage and sexual exploitation.
At a hearing of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Smith urged the State Department's office dedicated to combating human trafficking to undertake a "comprehensive reassessment" of China and India.
He cited in particular Beijing's failure to prevent rampant trafficking of North Korean refugees.
The countries risk being downgraded in the State Department's annual "Trafficking in Persons" blacklist, and could face sanctions including withholding non-humanitarian, non-trade related US aid, he said.
Smith said the problem with trafficking in China has become particularly acute because of the country's "one child" law that has led to a shortage of marriageable women and created "a colossal market for bride selling."
Chinese demographers forecast that by 2020 some 40 million Chinese men will not be able to find women to marry, Smith said, calling the one child policy "barbaric."
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who has made women's and children's rights a signature issue, in June called human trafficking a "terrible crime" as she unveiled a US report on the subject.
China and India were listed on the report's "tier two watch list," for countries making "significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with minimum standards" on trafficking.
Lawmakers said however that they risk being regulated to the report's bottom rung, alongside long-time violators North Korea and Burma.
As Congress prepares to take up a reauthorization bill to update the 2000 law for the next decade, the committee's chair Howard Berman said huge challenges remain to combat the 32-billion-dollar-a-year industry that sees humans "reduced to machines for production or pleasure."
Of the world's estimated 27 million modern day slaves, two thirds are in India chiefly in bonded labor, the committee heard in testimony. Smith slammed New Dehli's action on the issue as "not even remotely commensurate with the size of its current problem."
The number of prosecutions for sex industry traffickers have risen nominally in some Indian states, said advocate Beryl Ann D'Souza, who heads anti-human trafficking efforts in India for the Dalit Freedom Network.
Even with laws on the books, D'Souza said the sub-continent's approach needs comprehensive overhaul, as only seven percent of India's police force have received any type of anti-trafficking training.
Copyright © 2010 AFP. All rightsAFP: US lawmaker presses China, India over human trafficking
Source: AFP
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