PNG has been globally ranked as a Tier three country in the fight against human trafficking.
This means PNG is making little or no progress in dealing with trafficking.
The United States Government now is calling on the PNG Government to urgently gazette and enact legislation to punish or prohibit all forms of human trafficking.
Meanwhile, the Criminal Code Act 2012 passed in Parliament last year, has not yet come into force.
Human trafficking is not only the movement of people across borders, but is simply taking advantage of the weak and unprotected.
Over the past decade, 159 countries outside of PNG have become parties to the United Nations trafficking protocol, adopted modern anti-trafficking laws, set up specialized law enforcement units, established victim assistance mechanisms and raised public awareness campaigns.
PNG continues to be an outlier in its practices on this important issue. The world is now seeing human trafficking as modern day slavery.
