In a quarterly report released on Monday, the department’s secretary of state, Antony Blinken, focused on individual trafficking using online tools.
” Digital devices have amplified the approach, level, and frequency of trafficking”, Blinken wrote in the 2024 Smuggling in People Report. They sell unlawful sexual articles through online marketplaces. To avoid recognition, they use digital currencies and encrypted communication.
Blinken claimed that traffickers have expanded their reach as a result of the use of virtual tools.
According to Blinken,” Trafficking is the very concept of a problem that no one country may address alone.”
According to the International Labour Organization, 27.6 million people were working for themselves in 2021, an increase of 2.7 % from 2016. According to the ILO, 6.3 million of those 27.6 million were allegedly engaged in driven commercial sexual exploitation and 3.9 million were subject to state-imposed forced labor.
” However, some governments are part of the problem”, said Ambassador at- Big Cindy Dyer.
The State Department identified 13 countries as” Tier 3″ countries, meaning the governments had a documented “policy or pattern” of human trafficking. That included smuggling in government- supported programs, forced labor in government- associated health services, sexual slavery in government camps, or the employment or recruitment of child soldiers, the report said.
In 2024, the 13 countries identified as” Tier 3″ were Afghanistan, Belarus, Burma, China, Cuba, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Russia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria and Turkmenistan.
Countries are more likely to experience an increase in people prostitution, according to Dyer, as the migrant crisis gets worse globally.
We urge governments to stop trafficking and place a high priority on screening for migrants because they frequently owe money to immigrant smugglers, making them vulnerable to smuggling when they are unable to give it, according to Dyer.
Dyer said the United States follows the “3P” model – trial, defense and protection, to fight human trafficking.
