The United States explained Thursday that the Covid-19 pandemic has created an "
ideal environment
" for human trafficking to expand across the world, with governments redirecting their resources to the health crisis while traffickers in took advantage to target the most vulnerable.
Read also: United Kingdom: a young woman who had joined ISIS victim of human trafficking, according to her lawyers
Faced with the great economic difficulties resulting from the pandemic, traffickers have offered "
false promises
" of jobs to "
recruit children
" from impoverished families, "
while other families exploited or sold their children,
" the annual report says. of the State Department on this scourge.
Examples come from all over the world.
17 blacklisted countries
In India and Nepal, some "
young girls from poor and rural areas (...) were forced to marry to help their families
." "
In the United States, United Kingdom and Uruguay, accounts show that landlords forced their tenants (often women) to have sex with them
" if they could no longer pay their rent. “
In Haiti, Niger and Mali, gangs operating in IDP camps have taken advantage of declining security and protections to force residents to submit to paid sex acts.
""
The confluence of a greater number of individuals at risk from the pandemic, the ability of traffickers to capitalize on multiple crises, and the reorientation of (government) resources towards the fight against the pandemic has created many respects an ideal environment for human trafficking to prosper and evolve,
”said a senior official in US diplomacy.
Beyond the pandemic, Guinea-Bissau and Malaysia have joined the American blacklist of 17 countries which, in Washington's eyes, do not meet the minimum criteria for the fight against human trafficking and do not do enough efforts to achieve it. Also included are: Afghanistan, Algeria, Burma, China, Comoros, North Korea, Cuba, Iran, Nicaragua, Russia, South Sudan, Syria, Turkmenistan and Venezuela . This blacklisting may lead to sanctions or the withdrawal of American aid. Turkey is not on this blacklist but has been pinned for "
recruiting and using child soldiers in Syria and Libya
". “
This is the first time that a NATO member has been on the list
"From countries recruiting child soldiers," said the senior official.