Trafficking in nonsense

Human trafficking (for sex or labor) is a serious, worldwide problem, so it's too bad that the U.S. State Department continues to politicize the issue. It's 2005 report is garnering headlines over the inclusion this year of Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, but once again the report ludicrously places Cuba, Venezuela, and North Korea in the "Tier 3" list as the countries most guilty of "human trafficking". One indication of just how political those choices are is found in the report's introduction, which uses illustrative examples from Central Africa, Albania, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Belarus, India, and the UAR, only one of which (the UAR) is on the Tier 3 list.

As was the case last year, the report's major criticisms of Cuba, Venezuela, and North Korea seem to be more related to their lack of cooperation with the U.S. in compiling the report than with actual evidence of human trafficking. For example, here's a statement from the report about Poland, which is one of only 24 "Tier 1" countries (the "good" countries): "Poland is a source, transit, and destination country for women and children trafficked to Western Europe, Israel, and Japan primarily for the purposes of sexual exploitation." No statement remotely that damning is found in the description of Cuba, Venezuela, and North Korea.

My favorite statement from the report, which also appeared last year, is this one regarding Cuba: "Cuban forced labor victims include children coerced into working in conditions of involuntary servitude in commercial agriculture." "Commercial agriculture", of course, refers not to Cargill, or Archer Daniels Midland, or some company profiting off child labor, but to Cuba itself, and the "involuntary servitude" mentioned refers to the fact that Cuban children spend a certain portion of their school year working on farms, far less for the amount they actually contribute to the economy than to learn about the value and dignity of labor. For example:

"There was a uniquely Cuban emphasis on the combination of education and service: Even the littlest children were required to help keep their school clean and tend its gardens, and many of the older ones attended boarding schools during the week where they spent half a day in classes and half a day at work on farms."

"Involuntary servitude" indeed.

Finally, it should be noted that, as befits a country which seeks to tell every other country how to run their own affairs but isn't interested in seeing the shoe on the other foot, the report does not include any information about human trafficking (either as a source or destination country, or as the source of "Johns" involved in sex tourism around the world) in the United States itself. Wouldn't want to go there.