U.S. 'Tracking' Impacts Of "Foreign Agent" Law In Georgia, Top Official Say

The United States is monitoring the impacts of the Kremlin-inspired "Foreign Agents" law that was adopted this month by the Georgian Dream government, a top State Department official said on Tuesday, TURAN's Washington correspondent reports.

"We certainly were concerned by the passage of those – kind of that foreign agent law.  At this point we are tracking it," Cindy Dyer, U.S. ambassador-at-large to monitor and combat trafficking in persons, told a Foreign Press Center briefing, when responding to TURAN's questions.

Georgian remains on "Tier 1", the top ranking, in the State Department's Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report which covers 2023.  When asked by TURAN whether the newly adopted "Foreign Agents" law, which critics worry is intended to neutralize NGOs, might impact Georgia's performance in the TIP report, given that it mostly relies on joint government-civil society cooperation, Dyer explained that they will only be able to reflect the effect of the law during the next reporting period.

She went on to add, "Certainly this is something that we’ll be monitoring to make sure that the NGOs that are providing such critical services and the civil society organizations that we rely on, if they begin to have trouble operating, then this is something that we would certainly be tracking as sort of the results of any laws that are passed."

TURAN also asked about the importance of regional efforts in the South Caucasus to boost Azerbaijan and Armenia's relatively poor rankings in the TIP reports as both countries remain on "Tier 2", meaning that despite efforts, they do not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking.

"We think this is critically important," Ambassador Dyer said, adding "especially in a region where there’s a lot of travel and a lot of movement among the region."

She went on to elaborate: That’s one of the reasons that we sort of highlighted the Western Hemisphere in this report, because there is so much migration and movement among this region, and when there is, there is usually similar things that governments should be on the lookout for, to be wary of, and also similar things that a government can do to best focus their efforts."

Dyer also spoke about Russia, which was designated as a state sponsor of trafficking in the TIP report. One troubling trend highlighted in this year’s report, she said, is the coercive or fraudulent recruitment of fighters for Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

"Russian authorities, middlemen, private military companies, or Russian-affiliated forces reportedly used coercion, deception, and in some cases force in the recruitment of foreign nationals," she added.