7 July 2018 05:15 pm
The report was released by Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo at the State Department headquarters in Washington, DC last week.
“There are reports of women and girls from Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Pakistan, Iran, Tajikistan and China subjected to sex trafficking in Afghanistan. Under the pretense of high-paying employment opportunities, some labor recruiting agencies lure foreign workers to Afghanistan including from Sri Lanka, Nepal, India, Iran, Pakistan and Tajikistan; the recruiters subject these migrants to forced labor after arrival,” the report said.
It said Burmese Rohingya, Sri Lankan Tamil and other refugee populations continue to be vulnerable to sex trafficking and forced labor in India.
Meanwhile, the report said some Sri Lankan women were subjected to forced prostitution in Cyprus, Maldives, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and elsewhere.
Quoting an NGO report in 2016, the report further said some domestic workers from Indonesia, the Philippines, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have been reportedly forced into prostitution in Jordan after fleeing their employers. (Lahiru Pothmulla)