US places China in Tier 3 category in TIP report

The report was published by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday.

As per the report, China has been placed in the Tier-3 category, which is the lowest ranking in the list.

"Our Trafficking in Persons Report calls out a group of nations with a state-sponsored pattern of forced labour. Among them is China, where the CCP and its state-owned enterprises often forcing citizens to work in horrendous conditions on Belt and Road project," Pompeo was quoted as saying by WION.

The report said: "The Government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and is not making significant efforts to do so; therefore the PRC remained on Tier 3."

"Despite the lack of significant efforts, the government took some steps to address trafficking, including by prosecuting and convicting some traffickers, and by continuing to cooperate with international authorities to address forced and fraudulent marriages in the PRC, a key trafficking vulnerability for foreign women and girls," it said.

"However, during the report period there was a government policy or pattern of widespread forced labor, including through the continued mass arbitrary detention of more than one million Uyghurs, ethnic Kazakhs, ethnic Kyrgyz, and other Muslims in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (Xinjiang)," the report further said.

The report is divided into several categories-   Tier-1, Tier-2, Tier-2 watchlist, and Tier-3.

The countries placed in the  Tier-3 get access to only limited resources from the US.