Azerbaijan Remains on U.S. Watch List on Trafficking For "One Last Time" - State Department

Azerbaijan is placed on a "Watch list" at the U.S. State Department for the third year in a row, for failing to do enough to combat human trafficking, TURAN's Washington correspondent reports.

In its annual Trafficking in Persons Report (TIP), which was released on Thursday, the State Department kept Azerbaijan among countries that face a major trafficking problem and whose governments do "not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking but are making significant efforts to do so."

In the case of Azerbaijan, those efforts included "imposing more stringent sentences to convicted traffickers and identifying more victims, including victims of internal trafficking....The government slightly increased funding for victim assistance, continued to provide robust victim assistance through Victim Assistance Centers, and adopted the 2020-2024 National Action Plan." reads the report.

However, the Azerbaijani government "did not demonstrate overall increasing efforts" compared to the previous reporting period, even considering the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on its anti-trafficking capacity, and it investigated and prosecuted fewer suspects and convicted fewer traffickers, The government also lacked proactive identification efforts, resulting in victims likely penalized for unlawful acts their traffickers compelled them to commit.

"The government [of Azerbaijan] continued to lack interagency cooperation on anti-trafficking efforts and continued its moratorium on scheduled and unannounced labor inspections through 2021," reads the report. "Because the government has devoted sufficient resources to a written plan that, if implemented, would constitute significant efforts to meet the minimum standards, Azerbaijan was granted a waiver per the Trafficking Victims Protection Act from an otherwise required downgrade to Tier 3."

This is the last time however that the country can stay on the Tier 2 watch list, before either being upgraded or downgraded to the lowest grade Tier 3, which could trigger sanctions and aid cuts.

"Next year, we will be hoping to see enough progress that we will be able to recognize that with an upgrade to Tier 2. If not, we will not be able to leave Azerbaijan for a fourth consecutive year on Tier 2 Watch List.... and our options will either be to upgrade it if we see enough progress and it meets the criteria for a Tier 2 ranking, or, unfortunately, we will be required to automatically downgrade it to Tier 3."  Kari Johnstone, State Department's acting director of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, told TURAN's Washington correspondent.

"... The length of time that a country can stay on Tier 2 Watch List is time limited.  It's not a decision by the State Department but the U.S. Congress," she explained during a press briefing organized by the Department's Washington Foreign Press Center.

This years' report also prioritizes recommendations including increasing efforts to vigorously investigate, prosecute and convict traffickers and sentence them with adequate penalties which should involve significant prison terms..

Other recommendations include: increase proactive identification efforts, particularly for internal trafficking, forced labor, and child trafficking; develop and implement standard operating procedures and indicators for screening trafficking victims; train officials on screening for trafficking among individuals in commercial sex, migrants, children begging, and other at-risk populations, among other key steps.

Asked whether the U.S. government is able to measure the actual scale of human trafficking which can sometimes be different than the official figures suggest in the countries like Azerbaijan, Jonstone told TURAN's correspondent that it is "a true challenge" globally for the anti-trafficking community.

"Human trafficking is a hidden crime. Victims don't tend to come forward like they do for many other crimes like theft or assault, and in many ways they cannot... So it is incumbent upon governments to proactively identify those victims," she explained, "That makes it really hard to measure the scope and scale of the crime."

The TIP Report, she said, focuses on government efforts to address human trafficking across 3Ps: prosecution, protection, and prevention.

It explicitly does not measure the scale and scope of human trafficking in any given country but looks at what governments are doing and if they are meeting those minimum standard criteria that I mentioned earlier as we assess tier rankings.

Alex Raufoglu

Washington D.C.