Iraq, Kurdistan improving, but still not meet anti-trafficking standards, says US

WASHINGTON DC - The Iraqi and Kurdistan Region governments have further work to do to combat trafficking in the country, the US State Department has said in light of Baghdad being upgraded from a Tier 3 Watch List to a Tier 2 country in the annual US Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report.

"We identified in this year’s report that the government did not meet the minimum standards in a few areas," US Ambassador-at-Large to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons Cindy Dyer told Rudaw on Tuesday during a press briefing in Washington. "Number one, the government did not report efforts to address reports of official complicity. This is a concern that we track."

"Sometimes it is very hard to hold your own colleagues accountable, and we identified the lack of an ability to address official complicity, including officials who allegedly exploited children with alleged affiliation to ISIS and their families in sex trafficking in exchange for civil documentation that would be required to receive government services. Despite the increased training that we did point out, investigative judges still often have limited knowledge of the issue of trafficking."

The State Department gathers information on trafficking in persons from government officials as a primary source of information, and then assesses it to make a decision if the countries meet international obligations.

"But that's not exclusive," Dyer said. "We also receive critical information from NGOs, from civil society actors, from international organizations. And we obtain this not only with our staff in D.C., but also with the staff at post in Iraq. And we do it over the whole year. And yes, we flag areas for improvement."

The United States published its annual TIP Report for 2024 on Wednesday, when Iraq's designation was upgraded.

"The government demonstrated overall increasing efforts compared with the previous reporting period; therefore Iraq was upgraded to Tier 2," the report stated.

The Iraqi government should put more effort into combating trafficking, according to Dyer.

"Specifically... include the government investigating and prosecuting significantly more trafficking crimes, convicting more traffickers, assigning specialized judges to preside over trafficking cases, and increasing personnel for the ministry of interior’s anti-trafficking department, including female police officers," Dyer said.

She acknowledged Baghdad has "drafted, finalized, and disseminated official standard operating procedures, SOPs, which are used for victim identification and referral for services ... These were released for law enforcement and first responders, and they trained officials on how to utilize those SOPs, including those investigative judges, who remain the sole officials able to officially identify a victim, so that training of those judges was incredibly important."

Iraq and the Kurdistan Region are a source, destination, and transit location for human trafficking. Domestic workers and laborers from Asia, Africa, and elsewhere in the Middle East are often targeted by employment agencies due to their unfamiliarity with local laws and promised financial incentives.

"In some cases, authorities did not proactively identify victims among vulnerable populations, which results in inappropriately penalizing victims who may have been forced to commit criminal offenses as a part of their trafficking," Dyer said.

Sex work is not specifically regulated in Iraq, and although illegal, it is still prevalent.

"We saw this particularly in Iraq with prostitution violations or immigration violations. And we also noted that there was a lack of services and assistance for some vulnerable communities such as the LGBTQI community, who lacked services," Dyer said.

Dyer spoke of the Kurdistan Regional Government's efforts to combat human trafficking, saying, "The KRG separately reported law enforcement data for the first time in five years, and they also identified more victims compared with the last two reporting periods."

The KRG has specialized police and security units, like the TIP Police, primarily tasked with responding to human trafficking in the Kurdistan Region. The TIP Police work closely with other government agencies and receive specialized training from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) supported by the United States and European countries.

"The government reported identifying fewer trafficking victims and the KRG did not report law enforcement or victim identification data," the TIP report stated. "Deficiencies in identification and referral procedures, coupled with some authorities' limited understanding of trafficking, continued to prevent some victims from receiving appropriate protection services."

The United States assesses the information gathered by governments and then makes observations and recommendations.

"The government drafted and enacted implementing regulations for the anti-trafficking law, which provided the relevant member ministries detailed roles and responsibilities. Of course, as with all Tier 2 countries, there are areas for improvement," Dyer concluded.