NEW ZEALAND TIP REPORT: LESSONS LEARNED

UNCLAS E F T O SECTION 01 OF 02 WELLINGTON 000563 SIPDIS NOFORN SENSITIVE DEPT FOR EAP/ANP, G/TIP E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: KWMN PHUM PREL ELAB AMGT NZ TIP SUBJECT: NEW ZEALAND TIP REPORT: LESSONS LEARNED REF: A. WELLINGTON 521 ¶B. SINGAPORE 1889 ¶1. (SBU/NF) Following the turbulent June 14 release of the 2004 TIP report, which named New Zealand for the first time (ref a),Embassy Wellington would like to add its strong support to the recommendations contained in Embassy Singapore's recent excellent cable (ref b). While the GNZ is hypersensitive to any perceived criticism of its human rights record (and a negative response to the TIP report was fully anticipated),the language used in the New Zealand narrative of the TIP report directly undermined the credibility of the report and negatively affected the USG's image with the NZ public. The report, as released, allowed the GNZ and domestic media to shift off-message from the fight against trafficking. The Prime Minister, other senior government officials and local commentators instead challenged the credibility of the TIP report's NZ-specific narrative. ¶2. (SBU/NF) Drawing on ref b, Post would like to offer its own observations and suggestions for improving the TIP report format, making the report's narrative more accurate and thereby allowing us to hold a more constructive dialogue on ways and means of combating trafficking in our host country. -- First and foremost, embassies must draft the initial country narratives, as is done for the Human Rights Report and the International Religious Freedom Report, with far greater success. - Drafting the country narrative of the TIP report at post would significantly reduce the time commitment currently required. This year, post first sought to address the extensive questionnaire provided, and then Post and the Desk were obliged to dedicate substantial amount of time to editing and attempting to make G/TIP's initial narrative accurate. - As a SEP Post, we are fully cognizant of the need to prioritize increasing demands on limited resources. In New Zealand, however, the P/E officer tasked with drafting the HRR is already in contact with the same Government agencies and NGOs used for the TIP Report, and is best placed to address questions on both topics with the same set of interlocutors. As over 60 percent of information included in the questionnaire is not used in the report, Post could reduce the amount of time used outlining legislation or policies that do not change from year to year. - Another major concern for Post was a perceived attitude among G/TIP that New Zealand's report and tier designation should somehow follow the report and tier designation of Australia -- despite the vastly different scale and type of human trafficking concerns in both countries. -- Inclusion in the report is currently based on a Department-set threshold of 100 individuals. In drafting answers to G/TIP's initial questionnaire, Post was unable to find solid evidence of over 100 cases of human trafficking in the 2003 calendar year. G/TIP's decision to include NZ was therefore based on a single multi-year study that found evidence of child prostitution. We are unaware of any other country having been listed solely on the grounds of internal childhood prostitution. While this does trigger NZ's inclusion in the report by the definitions of our legislation, it is not a definition accepted by New Zealanders. They consider us to be "stretching" the commonly accepted definition of trafficking to include NZ. -- The TIP Report should be made as inclusive as possible, making it a global report that incorporates an assessment of every country in the world - again, as is the case with the Department's annual Human Rights report. -- The tier system provoked the GoNZ concerns to focus on how to &get off the list,8 instead of how to improve their fight against trafficking. By including all countries, the focus would hopefully return to the content of the report, and not the Tier designation or who is and is not included. ¶4. (SBU/NF) Focus on the positive and means of best advancing country practices in the fight against trafficking. - Make a list of Best Practices available to reporting officers. For example, New Zealand has proved extremely flexible in ending visa-free regimes for countries that are suspected of trafficking victims to NZ. In addition, despite the lack of a national coordinator, NZ has been a leader in information sharing between domestic law enforcement and social agencies. - Provide a set of recommendations for reference on ways countries in the report might better address their trafficking situation. Such recommendations would provide valuable topics with which to engage host governments, media and the wider public at the time of the report's release. For instance, the New Zealand narrative of the report contains one recommendation ) the creation of a national coordinator for trafficking issues. Unfortunately, discussion of this useful step was lost as New Zealand officials and media generally dismissed the NZ narrative because of choice of language used. ¶5. (SBU/NF) Post would like to reiterate its strong commitment to the principles underlying the production of an annual TIP Report. We believe that this report is part of a process that does not begin and end with the release of the report, and looks forward to effectively contributing to the fight against trafficking. Burnett