A couple months ago, the US State Department released the 2016 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report and it was not good news for Ghana. For the second year in a row, Ghana was placed on the Tier 2 Watch List, which means that if the government does not make significant anti-trafficking efforts, next year Ghana must be downgraded to Tier 3, losing around $600 million of aid from the United States.
Earlier this year the U.S. State Department downgraded Thailand to the same level that is shared by North Korea and Iran in regards to their human rights and trafficking record. They were moved from the Tier 2 Watch List to Tier 3, meaning that they do not fully comply with the minimum standards of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act nor are the making significant efforts to do so. According to the Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report, Thailand is a source, transit and destination country for both sex and labor exploitation.
Earlier this week, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime released the 2014 Global Report on Trafficking in Persons, covering 128 countries and looks at the pattern and flow of trafficked persons in the world. Each country report only included official numbers from convictions and prosecutions provided by the government, which for Thailand was 62 and 270 respectively.