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For some reason one prominent country south of the border involved in human trafficking is missing from the list.

Cuba, Venezuela still cited in human-trafficking report

Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia and Jamaica are among 14 nations that could face sanctions for doing too little to stop human trafficking, a U.S. State Department report said.

BY PABLO BACHELET

pbachelet@herald.com


WASHINGTON - The State Department Friday kept Cuba and Venezuela on its list of 14 countries deemed to be doing too little to stop human trafficking, sparking an angry response from Venezuela that Washington was playing politics with the issue.

The State Department, in its annual Trafficking in Persons Report, also included Bolivia, Jamaica and Ecuador on the list of nations -- known as ''tier 3'' countries -- from the Americas that face a suspension of nonhumanitarian and non-trade-related aid if no steps to improve matters are taken during a 90-day grace period.

President Bush can waive the sanctions.

MODERN SLAVERY

The report estimates that 800,000 people are trafficked across borders every year, a practice that includes child prostitution and debt bondage. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called human trafficking ''nothing less than a modern form of slavery'' when she presented the report on Friday.

In Cuba, child prostitution is ''widely apparent, even to casual observers,'' the State Department report noted. There was ''anecdotal evidence'' to suggest that law enforcement personnel and workers in the tourist trade, including those employed in state-run hotels, were ``complicit in the sexual exploitation of minors.''

Cuba's forced-labor victims include children who are obliged to serve in commercial agriculture, according to the report.

IN VENEZUELA

Venezuela was both a source and a transit point of women and children for the purpose of sexual exploitation and forced labor, according to the 256-page report.

Women and children from Colombia, Guyana, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador and the Dominican Republic are ``trafficked to and through Venezuela and subjected to commercial sexual exploitation.''

Venezuelans are sent to countries such as Spain, Mexico and Trinidad and Tobago.

The Venezuelan government did not comply with minimum standards and made few efforts to do so, according to the report.

The Venezuelan Embassy dismissed the report in a statement, calling it ``a sad demonstration of how the [Bush] administration has politicized its work on human rights.''

There was no evidence that the government condoned human trafficking, but corruption among immigration, identification and border patrol agents was ''widespread.'' Venezuela lacked a program to protect trafficking victims and prevention efforts were ``inadequate.''

TAKING ACTION

The Venezuelan Embassy said the government has undertaken education campaigns to stop the practice and has undertaken police sweeps of motels and hostels to find illegal immigrants, among other measures.

Bolivia was a source and transit point for men, women and children trafficked to neighboring nations as well as to Western Europe, Japan and the United States for forced-labor and sexual exploitation purposes.

Jamaica, the State Department report says, is a source of children trafficked internally for sexual purposes.

Ecuador was also a source and transit destination for trafficked people, and the government was not making a significant effort to stop it.