Bloomberg News
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"Israel and Egypt, both U.S. allies, were demoted in a State Department ranking of countries judged on efforts to combat forced labor and other forms of exploitation.
Israel was put on a "watch list" because the government failed to provide evidence that it is addressing conditions of involuntary servitude "allegedly facing thousands of foreign migrant workers," the State Department's annual "Trafficking in Persons Report" said.
Egypt was put on the same list, a step that can lead to U.S. financial sanctions, because it didn't show that law enforcement efforts had been stepped up to fight the smuggling of Eastern European women across the Sinai Desert to work in the Israeli sex trade, the report said. Trafficking concerns about Iran and the World Cup soccer tournament also were highlighted in the report.
Placement on the watch list "stands for worry, it stands for warning," U.S. Ambassador John Miller, an adviser on international slavery, told reporters at the State Department in Washington today.
Countries on the watch list are in jeopardy of being dropped the following year into the lowest ranking, where they face the possibility of U.S. sanctions relating to foreign aid. Support from the U.S. government for loans from the International Monetary Fund or the World Bank may also be withheld."
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