Myanmar, Uzbekistan blacklisted on the U.S. human trafficking report

The United States released its annual human trafficking report and added eight countries, including Uzbekistan and Myanmar, to the blacklist of those not putting much effort to control the scourge.

"There's a lot of information in here; a lot of studious work goes into thinking it through," said Secretary of State John Kerry while releasing the report yesterday and added that "There are some tough calls" but the results are based on facts and not on political considerations.

"There are some folks in here who will obviously be concerned about the conclusions, but the conclusions are based on facts and based on a lot of analysis over a year," said Kerry.

Last year's report by the State Department was criticised for not including Myanmar on its Tier 3 list, amid allegations that Washington was turning a blind eye to slavery in order to encourage a slow transition to democracy, reports the Myanmar Times.

This year's report on Myanmar calls it "a source country for men, women, and children subjected to forced labor and for women and children subjected to sex trafficking, both in Burma and abroad".

Human rights watchdogs, however, mentioned that Thailand and Malaysia were not being held to account.

"Starting with Thailand, we have seen some willingness to reform some of their laws, but it's not made any significant impact on the ground," said Kristen Abram, acting director of anti-trafficking umbrella group ATEST.

She further said "With Malaysia, we know that they were moved up last year for political reasons. It was unjustified then and it remains unjustified today."

The watchdogs remain concerned that Washington is going easy on its allies in South-East Asia, where the fishing industry in particular is regularly accused of using forced labor.

This year's report has also removed Thailand from its human trafficking blacklist and the country was 'upgraded' to Tier 2 Watch List from Tier 3 and activists are criticizing this move claiming Thailand has been at the center of trafficking groups that operate across South-East Asia.

In the first tier are countries that meet minimum standards for dealing with human trafficking.

The second tier is made up of countries that do not meet the minimum levels, but are making efforts to comply.

Tier 3 is the group of countries doing the least to fight human trafficking.