SRI LANKA -- 2009 TIP REPORT: PRESS GUIDANCE AND

UNCLAS STATE 060355 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: KTIP ELAB KCRM KPAO KWMN PGOV PHUM PREL SMIG CE SUBJECT: SRI LANKA -- 2009 TIP REPORT: PRESS GUIDANCE AND DEMARCHE REF: A. STATE 59732 ¶B. STATE 005577 ¶1. This is an action cable; see paras 5 through 7 and 10. ¶2. On June 16, 2009, at 10:00 a.m. EDT, the Secretary will release the 2009 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report at a press conference in the Department's press briefing room. This release will receive substantial coverage in domestic and foreign news outlets. Until the time of the Secretary's June 16 press conference, any public release of the Report or country narratives contained therein is prohibited. ¶3. The Department is hereby providing Post with advance press guidance to be used on June 16 or thereafter. Also provided is demarche language to be used in informing the Government of Sri Lanka of its tier ranking and the TIP Report's imminent release. The text of the TIP Report country narrative is provided, both for use in informing the Government of Sri Lanka and in any local media release by Post's public affairs section on June 16 or thereafter. Drawing on information provided below in paras 8 and 9, Post may provide the host government with the text of the TIP Report narrative no earlier than 1200 noon local time Monday June 15 for WHA, AF, EUR, and NEA countries and OOB local time Tuesday June 16 for SCA and EAP posts. Please note, however, that any public release of the Report's information should not/not precede the Secretary's release at 10:00 am EDT on June 16. ¶4. The entire TIP Report will be available on-line at www.state.gov/g/tip shortly after the Secretary's June 16 release. Hard copies of the Report will be pouched to posts in all countries appearing on the Report. The Secretary's statement at the June 16 press event, and the statement of and fielding of media questions by G/TIP,s Director and Senior Advisor to the Secretary, Ambassador-at-Large Luis CdeBaca, will be available on the Department's website shortly after the June 16 event. Ambassador de Baca will also hold a general briefing for officials of foreign embassies in Washington DC on June 17 at 3:30 pm EDT. ¶5. Action Request: No earlier than 12 noon local time on Monday June 15 for WHA, AF, EUR, and NEA posts and OOB local time on Tuesday June 16 for SCA and EAP posts, please inform the appropriate official in the Government of Sri Lanka of the June 16 release of the 2009 TIP Report, drawing on the points in para 9 (at Post's discretion) and including the text of the country narrative provided in para 8. For countries where the State Department has lowered the tier ranking, it is particularly important to advise governments prior to the Report being released in Washington on June 16. ¶6. Action Request continued: Please note that, for those countries which will not receive an "action plan" with specific recommendations for improvement, posts should draw host governments' attention to the areas for improvement identified in the 2009 Report, especially highlighted in the "Recommendations" section of the second paragraph of the narrative text. This engagement is important to establishing the framework in which the government's performance will be judged for the 2010 Report. If posts have questions about which governments will receive an action plan, or how they may follow up on the recommendations in the 2009 Report, please contact G/TIP and the appropriate regional bureau. ¶7. Action Request continued: On June 16, please be prepared to answer media inquiries on the Report's release using the press guidance provided in para 11. If Post wishes, a local press statement may be released on or after 10:30 am EDT June 16, drawing on the press guidance and the text of the TIP Report's country narrative provided in para 8. ¶8. Begin Final Text of Sri Lanka,s country narrative in the 2009 TIP Report: -------------- SRI LANKA (Tier 2 Watch List) -------------- Sri Lanka is primarily a source and, to a much lesser extent, a destination for men and women trafficking for the purposes of forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation. Sri Lankan men and women migrate willingly to Kuwait, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Bahrain, and Singapore to work as construction workers, domestic servants, or garment factory workers. Some of these workers find themselves in situations of involuntary servitude when faced with restrictions on movement, withholding of passports, threats, physical or sexual abuse, and debt bondage that is, in some instances, facilitated by large pre-departure fees imposed by labor recruitment agencies and their unlicensed sub-agents. Children are trafficked within the country for commercial sexual exploitation and, very infrequently, for forced labor. The designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) continued to recruit, sometimes forcibly, children for use as soldiers in areas outside of the Sri Lankan government,s control. Government security forces may be complicit in letting a breakaway LTTE faction that has aligned itself with the government, to unlawfully recruit child soldiers, sometimes with force. A small number of women from Thailand, China, and Russia, and other countries of the former Soviet Union may be trafficked into Sri Lanka for commercial sexual exploitation. Sri Lanka does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so. Despite these overall efforts, the government has not shown evidence of progress in convicting and punishing trafficking offenders; therefore, Sri Lanka is placed on Tier 2 Watch List. While the Sri Lankan government did not achieve any convictions of trafficking offenders, it arrested 29 alleged traffickers and started prosecutions against ten people for trafficking-related offenses, an increase from the previous year when no one was arrested or prosecuted for trafficking-related crimes. It also drafted a national policy on migration that promises to prevent the trafficking of Sri Lankan migrants and it developed a national anti-trafficking task force that should become operational in the coming year. Recommendations for Sri Lanka: Vigorously investigate and prosecute suspected trafficking offenses and convict and punish trafficking offenders, particularly those responsible for recruiting victims with fraudulent offers of employment and excessive commission fees; follow through with the creation of the national anti-trafficking task force; develop and implement through training of law enforcement personnel formal victim referral procedures; and ensure that victims of trafficking found within Sri Lanka are not detained or otherwise penalized for unlawful acts committed as a direct result of their being trafficked. Prosecution -------------- Although the Government of Sri Lanka made strides in arrests and prosecutions of alleged traffickers, it did not demonstrate adequate law enforcement efforts in addressing human trafficking cases over the reporting period. Sri Lanka prohibits all forms of trafficking through an April 2006 amendment to its penal code, which prescribes punishments of up to 20 years, imprisonment; these penalties are sufficiently stringent and commensurate with those prescribed for other grave offenses, such as rape. While the government conducted over 400 raids of fraudulent foreign recruiting agencies and took legal action against 80 of them ) which resulted in their licenses being suspended and the initiation of two prosecutions ) the majority had not yet been prosecuted criminally for trafficking-related offenses. The government canceled the licenses of 32 agencies and imposed fines on them. The police made 29 arrests of suspected trafficking offenders under the 2006 anti-trafficking statute. In addition, the Attorney General,s Department has started prosecutions against 12 people for trafficking-related offenses. There were no reported trafficking convictions during the reporting period. The Sri Lankan Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE),which is responsible for regulating foreign employment agencies and protecting Sri Lankan workers going abroad, developed a ranking system that would publicly grade all employment agencies based inter alia on the number of complaints the SLBFE receives relating to each agency, the number of legal cases against each, and the time each takes to resolve disputes with workers. This ranking system will be available on a website, but has not yet been finalized. The Attorney General began drafting a circular that would advise police to identify possible trafficking victims among women they detain for prostitution; this too has not yet been finalized. In collaboration with IOM, the police added a trafficking training module to the standard police curriculum used to train all new police recruits, as well as adding the curricula of two in-service police training institutes; so far, 520 police officers have received training on the new trafficking module. Following the November 2007 repatriation of 118 Sri Lankan peacekeepers from Haiti because of accusations that some of them had engaged in sexual misconduct, including possible exploitation of children, a Sri Lankan military court found 23 officers and soldiers guilty of sexual misconduct and abuse of children. During the last year, two of the officers were forced out of the military and one solider was discharged, while two other soldiers subsequently died in military action within Sri Lanka. Punishment for the remaining eight officers and ten soldiers has not yet been reported. Protection -------------- The government made some efforts to provide victims with necessary protection directly and ensure they received access to protective services provided by NGOs or international organizations. The government continued to provide limited counseling and day care for child victims of trafficking ) through the operation of six resource centers run by the National Child Protection Authority (NCPA). In addition, the SLBFE runs an overnight shelter for international trafficking victims returning from overseas at Sri Lanka,s only international airport. The Commissioner General for Rehabilitation, with the assistance of the NCPA, operated two rehabilitation centers specifically for children involved in armed conflict. Although government personnel did not employ formal procedures for proactively identifying victims and referring them to service providers, some ad hoc referrals were made during the year. Police did not attempt to identify trafficking victims among 16 foreign women who were arrested on prostitution charges during the year; all were placed in detention until they could pay for their departure from Sri Lanka. The government provided no legal alternatives for the removal of foreign victims to countries where they may face hardship or retribution. Authorities encouraged victims to participate in investigations and prosecutions of trafficking offenders, though sex trafficking victims rarely came forward to cooperate with police and prosecutors out of fear that doing so would damage their reputations. The slow pace of the Sri Lankan judicial system provided a strong disincentive to come forward. The government generally did not penalize victims of trafficking for unlawful acts committed as a direct result of their being trafficked, though some sex trafficking victims could have been penalized because the government failed to identify them among persons arrested for prostitution offenses. Victims who were employed abroad may seek assistance from the SLBFE. The SLBFE collected fees from registered workers who went abroad, which were used to run shelters abroad, as well as domestically at the international airport. Prevention -------------- The Sri Lankan government undertook modest efforts on trafficking prevention during the last year. The government conducted several trafficking awareness-raising activities, including the Women and Children,s Bureau of the Police,s sponsorship of a series of television docudramas that highlighted violence and crime against women and children, including the sex trafficking of Sri Lankan women and girls. The SLBFE launched an awareness campaign in October 2008 to inform the public of the dangers of using non-registered employment agencies. The Ministry of Foreign Employment Promotion and Welfare developed a National Policy on Migration and presented it to the parliament for consideration. Among other things, this policy seeks to better protect Sri Lankan workers abroad. The government continued plans started in 2007 to develop an inter-agency anti-trafficking task force, to be coordinated by the Secretary of the Ministry of Child Development and Women,s Empowerment, though the task force has not yet been launched. The government showed some efforts to reduce demand for commercial sex acts during the year. -------------- ¶9. Post may wish to deliver the following points, which offer technical and legal background on the TIP Report process, to the host government as a non-paper with the above TIP Report country narrative: (begin non-paper) -- The U.S. Congress, through its passage of the 2000 Trafficking Victims Protection Act, as amended (TVPA), requires the Secretary of State to submit an annual Report to Congress. The goal of this Report is to stimulate action and create partnerships around the world in the fight against modern-day slavery. The USG approach to combating human trafficking follows the TVPA and the standards set forth in the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (commonly known as the "Palermo Protocol"). The TVPA and the Palermo Protocol recognize that this is a crime in which the victims, labor or services (including in the "sex industry") are obtained or maintained through force, fraud, or coercion, whether overt or through psychological manipulation. While much attention has focused on international flows, both the TVPA and the Palermo Protocol focus on the exploitation of the victim, and do not require a showing that the victim was moved. -- Recent amendments to the TVPA removed the requirement that only countries with a "significant number" of trafficking victims be included in the Report. Beginning with the 2009 TIP Report, countries determined to be a country of origin, transit, or destination for victims of severe forms of trafficking are included in the Report and assigned to one of three tiers. Countries assessed as meeting the "minimum standards for the elimination of severe forms of trafficking" set forth in the TVPA are classified as Tier 1. Countries assessed as not fully complying with the minimum standards, but making significant efforts to meet those minimum standards are classified as Tier 2. Countries assessed as neither complying with the minimum standards nor making significant efforts to do so are classified as Tier 3. -- The TVPA also requires the Secretary of State to provide a "Special Watch List" to Congress later in the year. Anti-trafficking efforts of the countries on this list are to be evaluated again in an Interim Assessment that the Secretary of State must provide to Congress by February 1 of each year. Countries are included on the "Special Watch List" if they move up in "tier" rankings in the annual TIP Report -- from 3 to 2 or from 2 to 1 ) or if they have been placed on the Tier 2 Watch List. -- Tier 2 Watch List consists of Tier 2 countries determined: (1) not to have made "increasing efforts" to combat human trafficking over the past year; (2) to be making significant efforts based on commitments of anti-trafficking reforms over the next year, or (3) to have a very significant number of trafficking victims or a significantly increasing victim population. As indicated in reftel B, the TVPRA of 2008 contains a provision requiring that a country that has been included on Tier 2 Watch List for two consecutive years after the date of enactment of the TVPRA of 2008 be ranked as Tier ¶3. Thus, any automatic downgrade to Tier 3 pursuant to this provision would take place, at the earliest, in the 2011 TIP Report (i.e., a country would have to be ranked Tier 2 Watch List in the 2009 and 2010 Reports before being subject to Tier 3 in the 2011 Report). The new law allows for a waiver of this provision for up to two additional years upon a determination by the President that the country has developed and devoted sufficient resources to a written plan to make significant efforts to bring itself into compliance with the minimum standards. -- Countries classified as Tier 3 may be subject to statutory restrictions for the subsequent fiscal year on non-humanitarian and non-trade-related foreign assistance and, in some circumstances, withholding of funding for participation by government officials or employees in educational and cultural exchange programs. In addition, the President could instruct the U.S. executive directors to international financial institutions to oppose loans or other utilization of funds (other than for humanitarian, trade-related or certain types of development assistance) with respect to countries on Tier 3. Countries classified as Tier 3 that take strong action within 90 days of the Report's release to show significant efforts against trafficking in persons, and thereby warrant a reassessment of their Tier classification, would avoid such sanctions. Guidelines for such actions are in the DOS-crafted action plans to be shared by Posts with host governments. -- The 2009 TIP Report, issuing as it does in the midst of the global financial crisis, highlights high levels of trafficking for forced labor in many parts of the world and systemic contributing factors to this phenomenon: fraudulent recruitment practices and excessive recruiting fees in workers, home countries; the lack of adequate labor protections in both sending and receiving countries; and the flawed design of some destination countries, "sponsorship systems" that do not give foreign workers adequate legal recourse when faced with conditions of forced labor. As the May 2009 ILO Global Report on Forced Labor concluded, forced labor victims suffer approximately $20 billion in losses, and traffickers, profits are estimated at $31 billion. The current global financial crisis threatens to increase the number of victims of forced labor and increase the associated "cost of coercion. " -- The text of the TVPA and amendments can be found on website www.state.gov/g/tip. -- On June 16, 2009, the Secretary of State will release the ninth annual TIP Report in a public event at the State Department. We are providing you an advance copy of your country's narrative in that report. Please keep this information embargoed until 10:00 am Washington DC time June ¶16. The State Department will also hold a general briefing for officials of foreign embassies in Washington DC on June 17 at 3:30 pm EDT. (end non-paper) ¶10. Posts should make sure that the relevant country narrative is readily available on or though the Mission's web page in English and appropriate local language(s) as soon as possible after the TIP Report is released. Funding for translation costs will be handled as it was for the Human Rights Report. Posts needing financial assistance for translation costs should contact their regional bureau,s EX office. ¶11. The following is press guidance provided for Post to use with local media. Q1: Why was Sri Lanka again placed on Tier 2WL? A: Sri Lanka was placed on Tier 2WL because it did not show evidence of progress in prosecuting human trafficking offenses and punishing trafficking offenders over the last year. While the government conducted over 400 raids of fraudulent foreign recruiting agencies and took administrative action against 80 of them none were prosecuted criminally for trafficking-related offenses. Q2: What progress has Sri Lanka made in the last year? A: While the Sri Lankan government did not achieve any convictions of trafficking offenders, it arrested 29 alleged traffickers and started prosecutions against ten people for trafficking-related offences. It also drafted a national policy on migration that promises to prevent the trafficking of Sri Lankan migrants and it developed a national anti-trafficking task force that should become operational in the coming year. The Sri Lankan Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE),which is responsible for regulating foreign employment agencies and protecting Sri Lankan workers going abroad, developed a ranking system that would publicly grade all employment agencies based inter alia on the number of complaints the SLBFE receives relating to each agency, the number of legal cases against each, and the time each takes to resolve disputes with workers. In addition the SLBFE currently runs an overnight shelter for international trafficking victims returning from overseas at Sri Lanka,s only international airport. The Commissioner General for Rehabilitation, with the assistance of the NCPA, operated two rehabilitation centers specifically for children involved in armed conflict. Q3: What can Sri Lanka do to improve its fight against trafficking in persons? A: The Sri Lanka government could: Vigorously investigate and prosecute suspected trafficking offenses and convict and punish trafficking offenders, particularly those responsible for recruiting victims with fraudulent offers of employment and excessive commission fees; follow through with the creation of the national anti-trafficking task force; develop and implement through training of law enforcement personnel formal victim referral procedures; punish with criminal sanctions those peacekeeping soldiers and officers found guilty of sexually exploiting children in foreign countries; and ensure that victims of trafficking found within Sri Lanka are not detained or otherwise penalized for unlawful acts committed as a direct result of their being trafficked. ¶12. The Department appreciates posts, assistance with the preceding action requests. CLINTON