Sri Lanka has been downgraded to Tier 2 Watch List in this year’s Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report released Thursday (June 20) by the United States Department of State.
The 2018 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) said the government of Sri Lanka does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so.
These efforts included convicting more traffickers than previous years, including the first conviction under the trafficking statute in five years; identifying more potential trafficking victims; and continuing to conduct numerous anti-trafficking trainings and awareness raising events for government officials and civil society.
However, the government did not demonstrate overall increasing efforts compared to the previous reporting period. While it convicted more traffickers, it issued suspended sentences to some of those convicted and initiated significantly fewer prosecutions.
“Despite numerous trainings, officials did not make adequate efforts to screen individuals arrested or charged for prostitution, vagrancy, or immigration offenses for indicators of human and did not provide appropriate care. Complicity remained a serious problem and the government did not initiate any new investigations into allegedly complicit officials, despite multiple reports of official complicity in trafficking.
Therefore Sri Lanka was downgraded to Tier 2 Watch List.
The report recommended among others, respecting due process, improve efforts to vigorously investigate and prosecute suspected traffickers, and convict and sentence convicted traffickers to adequate penalties involving significant prison terms, and Hold government officials criminally accountable for complicity in trafficking or trafficking-related offenses-including fraudulent recruitment, sex trafficking.
