The State Department estimates that 27 million people worldwide are victims of human trafficking, mostly children and women who are born into poverty.
The State Department issues a report each year on human trafficking and classifying countries by their efforts to extinguish the practice. Once again this year, it listed Iran in the bottom category of countries doing little or nothing to impede human trafficking.
The Islamic Republic constantly charges that the United States only criticizes the practices of countries critical of American policy. But the list of human trafficking offenders includes Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
The accompanying table shows the 17 countries the State Department categorizes as offenders. The table breaks the listed countries down by region—which the State Department does not do—showing that the largest block by far are Muslim-majority states.
This is the seventh consecutive year Iran has been in this fourth and bottom category. It fell into that category after Mahmud Ahmadi-nejad took office. Under President Khatami, it had been in the second category, where most countries are listed,
The report on Iran says, “Criminal organizations, sometimes politically connected, play a significant role in human trafficking to and from Iran, particularly across the borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan…. Unconfirmed reports indicate that religious leaders and immigration officials are involved in human trafficking.
“The government of Iran does not comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking, and is not making significant efforts to do so.”
The report says that the Islamic Republic has sometimes punished the victims rather than the perpetrators of human trafficking, by, for example, jailing women victims for committing adultery and prostitution.
The report says that Iranian law on paper bans human trafficking for forced labor, debt bondage, forced marriage, organ removal and other purposes. But it says there were no reports in the last year covered by the annual report of any prosecutions or even investigations.
This year’s report added Syria to the bottom category for the first time.