US Human Trafficking Report | MSAR on watchlist for second consecutive year, gov’t says unacceptable

For the second consecutive year, the Department of State of the United States of America included Macau on the Tier 2 Watch List of its Trafficking in Persons Report.
Once again, the report concluded that local government “does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking but is making significant efforts to do so.”
Among said efforts cited, the U.S. Department of State says the most notable were: the training of numerous police, customs, and social welfare officials; the increase of funding for governmental anti-trafficking efforts; holding labor rights seminars for migrant workers vulnerable to exploitation; and enacting legislation to deter practices of debt-based coercion among employment agencies.
However, the U.S. Department also notes that, over the past year, the government did not demonstrate any will to improve the matters reported on the previous year, “even considering the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on its anti-
trafficking capacity.”
According to the department, local authorities also “did not identify or provide assistance to any victims for the second consecutive year,” and condemned the government for failing to “initiate any trafficking investigations or prosecutions or convict any traffickers. The government has never identified a victim of forced labor.”
In response, the Secretary for Security Wong Sio Chak issued a statement in which he expressed strong opposition to the assessment made about Macau in the report, as well as its Tier 2 Watch List classification.
“The report ranked the Macau SAR as on the Tier 2 Watch List. The Macau security authorities found such references to Macau in the report extremely unreasonable and unacceptable,” Wong said. He added that the efforts from the local government to combat trafficking in persons have been ceaseless.
Besides the government work, the Security Chief also noted on the work done in partnership with non-governmental organizations in coordinating the protection of victims and the formulation of preventive and combative measures.
Wong also remarked that Macau has laws and regulations on the issue, (Law 6/2008 – Combat the Crime of Trafficking in Persons), in which “international standards have been followed.”
“The self-styled report, nonetheless, has for years continuously ignored objective facts by giving wrong interpretations, false deductions, and unreasonable speculation. This is especially seen by the bias against Macau’s legal system and independent judiciary system, and the false accusations about the efficacy of Macau’s governance,” Wong stated. He went on to conclude that local “security authorities will closely collaborate with the judicial authorities to carry out necessary preventive and investigative work, as well as step up the international and regional exchange and cooperation, to explore joint strategies to prevent and combat any form of human trafficking and exploitation.”