On July 8, the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs held a hearing, “Combatting Forced Labor and Modern Day Slavery in East Asia and the Pacific.”
Luis CdeBaca, ambassador-at-large, Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, Department of State, stated, “A staggering portion of the world’s trafficking victims come from East Asia. These victims include men, women, and children subjected to both forced labor and sex trafficking. Forced labor occurs in the fishing, agriculture, mining, textile, and domestic service sectors, and in factories that produce other goods. In parts of East Asia, there is also state-sponsored forced labor, including by state militaries. Migrant workers are especially vulnerable to forced labor and debt bondage – in their home countries or upon traveling to other countries for employment. The fishing industry continues to be plagued with forced labor and is in need of additional law enforcement action and anti-corruption efforts to curb abuses. Girls and women are forced into prostitution in bars, brothels, massage parlors, and other venues. Sex tourism in some countries fuels the sex trafficking of children.”
“Although US and international definitions of human trafficking clearly include forced labor, many policymakers and much of the general public around the world associate trafficking only with forced prostitution or commercial sexual exploitation,” stated Neha Misra, senior specialist, Migration and Human Trafficking, Solidarity Center. She continued, “We continue to struggle to get governments to respond adequately to the problem of labor trafficking. Victims of trafficking for labor exploitation frequently go unidentified. Immigration officials regularly categorize migrant workers who are trafficking victims as undocumented workers and deport them. Police and labor inspectors often view involuntary servitude or debt bondage in sectors such as agriculture, construction, manual labor, and manufacturing as worker rights abuses that do not require their intervention. And governments have prosecuted shockingly few cases of forced labor globally. Thailand, Malaysia, and Cambodia are prime examples of this.”
The following witnesses also testified:
