Press Releases

2007 Annual Trafficking in Person Reports

June 22, 2007

To inspire greater determination, creativity, and cooperation among governments in the fight against human trade, the U.S. Department of State released the 2007 Trafficking in Persons Report at the State Department in Washington, D.C., Tuesday, June 12, 2007. 

The U.S. devotes millions of dollars in anti-trafficking in persons programs abroad each year. The Trafficking in Persons Report on over 150 countries is the most comprehensive worldwide report on the efforts of governments to combat severe forms of trafficking in persons. Its purpose is to raise global awareness and spur countries to take effective actions to counter trafficking in persons.  In Guinea, the U.S. has contributed over $110,000 each year for the last two years to fund projects to combat trafficking in Guinea.

The report rated countries as Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 2 Watch List, or Tier 3 based on their compliance with the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA).

Guinea was rated as Tier Two, the middle tier, meaning that it was not fully complying with the standards of the TVPA, but that it was making efforts to do so.  The report found that the government of Guinea continued to make progress, despite limited resources, in providing care to trafficking victims and in raising awareness about trafficking.

Among the government’s successful steps cited in the report were liaising with NGOs to place 22 child trafficking victims in foster homes with a government case manager monitoring each child’s care to ensure that medical and legal services were provided and continuing to provide free phone service for an NGO-operated 24-hour victim hotline. Guinea has also integrated trafficking-related issues into the primary school curriculum and continued to contribute personnel, vehicles and other travel resources to a national media campaign against trafficking that it launched jointly with UNICEF in 2005. In another example of the government’s work against trafficking, a successful arrest led to the jailing of a suspected trafficker for attempting to sell his daughter and the arrests of two additional individuals for trafficking a minor to Liberia for domestic servitude.

To strengthen its response to trafficking, the report encouraged Guinea to pass legislation prohibiting all forms of trafficking, increase efforts to investigate and prosecute traffickers, and rescue victims, focusing on children subjected to sexual exploitation.

The introduction to the report and Guinea’s country narrative are provided in French on the U.S. Embassy Conakry website at http://conakry.state.gov/ The complete Trafficking in Persons Report is available to the public on the State Department's website http://www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/2007/ The text of the TVPA and amendments can be found on website www.state.gov/g/tip/