Much has been made of the period in American history during which humans served as slaves. Indeed, much is made about it 150 years later.
Abe Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation took effect in 1863, however had Abe not done it when he did, it would have happened eventually simply because it was the right thing to do. News of the Proclamation didn't reach Texas until June 19, 1865, and the great Juneteenth holiday was born.
That the U.S. Department of State issued a report on worldwide slavery on June 19, 2012, was certainly not coincidental, and perhaps Secretary Hillary Clinton thinks there might be some political gain in this very important election year. Of course she neglected to mention that the program was a Bush Administration initiative.
In any event, let's take a cursory look at what they came up with. They identify seven categories of slavery, or "human trafficking" as it is now called: sex trafficking, child sex trafficking, forced labor, bonded labor or debt bondage, involuntary domestic servitude, forced child labor, unlawful recruitment and use of child soldiers.
Then they put countries into four tiers:
Tier One -- countries with governments that meet the minimum standard.
Tier Two -- countries with governments that don't meet the minimum standard but are improving.
Tier Two Watch List -- don't meet the minimum standard and getting worse, however the government promised to do better.
Tier Three -- don't meet the minimum standard and aren't even trying.
Sanctions can be placed on Tier Three countries unless the President waives them. The Tier Two Watch List looks like a category for those countries the DOS would prefer not to address, like Afghanistan. "I'm gonna count to three. One ... two ... two and a half ..."
Let's see who they put in Tier Three:
- Algeria
- Central African Rep
- Congo (DRC)
- Cuba
- Equatorial Guinea
- Eritrea
- Korea, North
- Kuwait
- Libya
- Madagascar (I thought that was a kid's movie)
- Papua New Guinea
- Saudi Arabia
- Sudan
- Syria
- Yemen, and finally
- Zimbabwe
See the entire list here and notice, for example, that Switzerland, Japan, Brazil and Mexico, among others, are Tier Two states.
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