Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), a recognized international leader in the fight against human trafficking, today chaired a congressional hearing examining the U.S. State Department’s findings in its recently released Trafficking In Persons (TIP) Report, which is mandated by Smith’s landmark Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) that was enacted in 2000.

            “The TIP Report is the gold standard for cataloguing countries’ records and using the information to push them to end the scourge of trafficking,” said Smith, the Chairman of the House Global Human Rights Subcommittee, who has authored five laws to combat human trafficking.

            “With approximately 28 million victims of modern-day slavery worldwide, it is absolutely critical that the TIP Report is strictly accurate across all countries according to TVPA criteria and does not pull punches for political reasons,” said Smith.

            Smith’s hearing—entitled “Examining the 2024 Annual Trafficking In Persons Report: Progress Over Politics”—included key testimony from Cindy Dyer, the U.S. Ambassador-at-Large to Monitor and Combat Trafficking In Persons, who is tasked with leading the TIP Office that produces the annual report.

            Smith noted that while the 2024 TIP Report rightfully included some of the world’s top human rights abusers and enablers of human trafficking in its most severe Tier 3 ranking, other countries like Vietnam got a pass for their human rights violations.

            “It is deeply disturbing to see Vietnam receive a sham Tier 2 ranking when its actions warrant a Tier 3 ranking,” said Smith. “Vietnam has reportedly provided misleading information to the United States. Anything less than a Tier 3 ranking by the U.S. State Department is a reward for the deception of the Vietnamese Communist Party and undermines the credibility and the objectivity of the Biden Administration’s work on the TIP Report.”

            “Additionally, Botswana, Bulgaria, Egypt, Montenegro, and Mozambique—which were moved from Tier 2 Watch List to Tier 2 status—are some of the countries where labor victims are recruited to scam centers in Southeast Asia,” Smith continued. “To maintain their new status, these countries must increase efforts to alert and educate their citizens of traffickers’ tactics to fraudulently recruit and coerce people to work in scam centers.”

            Smith, the author of the Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act of 2023, acknowledged Ambassador Dyer’s efforts to combat forced organ harvesting and welcomed the TIP Report’s new section on trafficking in persons for the purpose of organ removal as “a critical addition to encourage more data collection on this lesser known—but just as cruel and lucrative—form of human trafficking.”

            Smith also emphasized the importance of ensuring that input from civil society is reflected in the tier ranking determinations in future reports in order to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the situation in each country.

            “Sadly, time and time again information from civil society organizations is not fully considered because of a desire for political gain, especially for Southeast Asian countries,” Smith said.

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