EL UNIVERSAL

Venezuela, Cuba and Equatorial Guinea are among the world's worst offenders regarding trafficking in persons or labor exploitation, according to the US Department of State's Trafficking in Persons Report 2007 published on Tuesday.

The governments in these countries, and also in Venezuela's Arab allies Bahrain and Kuwait, are ranked in the lowest positions (Tier 3) of the study because they "do not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and are not making significant efforts to do so." They are therefore likely to be subject to US sanctions.

"Venezuela is a source, transit, and destination country for women and children trafficked for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor," stated the report.

According to the document, women and children from Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, the Dominican Republic, and People's Republic of China "are trafficked to and through Venezuela and subjected to commercial sexual exploitation or forced labor."

The report added that Venezuelans are trafficked internally and to Western Europe, "particularly Spain and the Netherlands, and to countries in the region such as Mexico, Aruba, and the Dominican Republic, for commercial sexual exploitation."

The US Department of State added in its report that Venezuela is a transit country for undocumented migrants from other countries in the region, particularly Peru and Colombia, and for Asian nationals.

"The United States is determined not only to fight human trafficking, but also to attain abolition of what is actually modern-day slavery and a the new kind of global slave trading," said US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, as quoted by Efe.

"Traffickers prey on the most weak among us, primarily women and children, for profit and gain," the official said during the ceremony to publish the report, which this year covers 164 countries.
 
Some of abuses linked to human trafficking including prostitution, children exploitation for commercial sex, unpaid forced labor, and child soldiers.

According to the International Labor Organization, there are over 12 million under forced labor and sexual slavery. The US State Department Report, however, puts the number at 27 million people.

Translated by Maryflor Suárez
msuarez@eluniversal.com