The international fight against human trafficking - from abuses of migrant workers to organised prostitution networks - lost ground in the past year, the US State Department reported.
The problem of modern trafficking may be entrenched, and it may seem there is no end in sight, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a statement accompanying the report. "But if we act on the laws that have been passed and the commitments that have been made, it is solvable."
Thailand, along with China and Russia, has been ranked in an average category, which cited each country's promise of improvement in light of "significant" numbers of victims and a failure to show increased efforts to "combat severe forms of trafficking".
As many as 27 million men, women and children are "living in a state of modern slavery", Clinton said.
Since many countries have adopted antitrafficking laws, the issue increasingly is one of enforcement, she said at a State Department ceremony honouring 10 "heroes" in the fight against such abuses.
Clinton, while citing advances in countries such as Bangladesh and the United Arab Emirates, said the overall number of prosecutions worldwide "has remained relatively static".
Eleven countries have dropped into socalled Tier 3, those with the poorest record of fighting trafficking, joining 12 nations previously listed in that category under guidelines set by the Trafficking Victims Protection Act.
One country, the Dominican Republic, was elevated from the lowest category because of improvements in its prevention measures.
Altogether 117 nations have committed to fighting human trafficking in accordance with the United Nations' Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, passed by the General Assembly on November
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