Turkey expresses ‘disappointment’ over remaining on Tier 2 in US human trafficking report
ANKARA
Turkey expressed disappointment that the country has not been upgraded to a higher category in the 2020 Human Trafficking Report of the U.S. Department of State.
In the report, “it is confirmed that our country has increased its fight against human trafficking. However, Turkey is hot upgraded to a higher category have been disappointing,” a Foreign Ministry statement said on June 28.
“Turkey is home nearly to 4 million displaced people and more likely to shoulder the burden of increased migration every year because of the instability in our region. Nevertheless, Turkey fights human trafficking in a decisive way,” said the statement.
“In this context, it continues to implement contracts and related laws with its trained staff, raise awareness in this regard in the society, effectively identify and protect victims, bring criminals to justice, and collaborate with civil society and international organizations,” said the ministry.
On the other hand, the statement drew attention to the findings in the report that “make it clear that the PKK/YPG is a terrorist and criminal organization with the crimes it committed, including abducting children.”
“Therefore, the data in this report shows that the US should give up accepting this terrorist organization as a legitimate partner. While the report refers to children who have been abducted by the terrorist organization PKK, but not mentioning 140 families who have been protesting in Diyarbakır for 303 days and 13 families who have adopted their children is a major deficiency, if not intentional,” read the statement.
Turkey remained in the second category where it has been since 2012 in the report, which is based on research carried out in 187 countries, because Ankara was not fully compliant with the minimum human trafficking prevention standards.
“The Government of Turkey does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking but is making significant efforts to do so. The government demonstrated overall increasing efforts compared to the previous reporting period; therefore Turkey remained on Tier 2,” said the report.
