한국, 인신매매방지 20년만에 2등급으로 하향 조정 ...
The U.S. State Department has released its annual 'Trafficking in Persons' report, which evaluates the anti-trafficking efforts by governments across the world.
This year, South Korea has been downgraded to Tier 2, losing its top-tier ranking for the first time in twenty years.
Min Suk-hyen reports.
South Korea no longer belongs to the Tier 1 category in the U.S. State Department's human trafficking report.
The country has been downgraded to Tier 2 for not fully meeting the minimum international standards for eliminating trafficking.
In the '2022 Trafficking in Persons' report shared on Tuesday, the State Department says South Korea failed to keep up with "sustained" efforts to root out trafficking, citing fewer prosecutions and investigations of suspected traffickers.
It also raised concerns over the country's victim identification guidelines and the court's light sentences for trafficking-related crimes, which often undermine efforts to hold offenders accountable.
It's a big shock for the country which had been listed in Tier 1 for the past two decades.
The report now calls on the government to do more to comply with the international standards for the protection of victims, prosecution of traffickers and prevention of trafficking.
Matthew Friedman, a human trafficking expert with more than 30 years of experience, says South Korea can do better to protect the victims.
"Let's say that a person was tricked and deceived and forced into prostitution, which could be an illegal activity. But because they were not identified as being a traffic victim, when in fact they were, because the protocol doesn't identify them as that, they could go to jail for doing illegal activities."
Friedman warns that it's important to identify victims and protect them, so that they don't end up in jail for the illegal activities they were forced to do.
Another point he mentions is the lenient punishment for traffickers in South Korea.
"Oftentimes the legal system, although it works to arrest people, the crime punishment is very lean. And there aren't...it could be less than a year for a trafficker. So, if the punishment is very lean, then there's more of a temptation to traffic people because even if you get caught, the implications are not really extreme."
Seoul's Foreign Ministry says it will closely review the report with the relevant ministries to see if there are any parts that need to be corrected or clarified, and vowed to step up its anti-trafficking measures.
Along with South Korea, the report also listed Japan, Norway and Switzerland in Tier 2.
Min Suk-hyen, Arirang News.
#SouthKorea #State_Department #human_trafficking
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2022-07-20, 12:00 (KST)
