CS Defends SAR Over Human Trafficking Record

Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung said in a blog post on Sunday that a government drive to identify victims of human trafficking in Hong Kong last year has found no evidence that it's a big problem here – contradicting the assessment of NGOs and the US State Department.

In a rare post written in English, Cheung said 2018 was a “pivotal and crucial” year in Hong Kong's fight against human trafficking.

He noted that police and customs officials ramped up screening measures – conducting 7,500 initial screenings of people identified as being 'vulnerable' to trafficking, such as illegal immigrants, sex workers and foreign domestic helpers. That's triple the number of screenings conducted in 2016.

But Cheung says despite these intensified efforts, authorities managed to identify only 18 victims, or 0.3 percent. This low figure, he says, shows that human trafficking isn't prevalent in Hong Kong, adding that there's no sign that the city is being actively used by trans-national syndicates as a destination or transit point for human trafficking.

Still, he says officials won't be complacent, and will redouble efforts in the coming year. He said HK$62 million in recurrent spending has been allocated to create 98 new positions to implement a cross-departmental plan to combat human trafficking.

Furthermore, the immigration department will set up a new team specifically to check visa applications from foreign domestic workers to check for signs of trafficking or exploitation. Another dedicated team in the Labour Department will put in place a victim screening mechanism.

Jade Anderson, head of research at the Justice Centre, acknowledged government efforts to improve their screening process, but noted that their own research in 2016 suggests that abuse and exploitation is “fairly systemic.” The study found a far higher number of foreign domestic helpers – 17 percent – are in forced labour.

"At present there's no clarification on how the government is defining exploitation when it screens for human trafficking, and so it's very difficult for us to be able to assess why there is such a discrepancy between what we found in our on-the-ground research and what the government sees when it does its screening," Anderson said.

The Chief Secretary also dismissed claims that Hong Kong lacks determination to deal with the matter simply because there isn't a specific law against human trafficking, saying these comments are "unfair and groundless". He said instead, the city has a basket of laws that are being used to prosecute offenders and protect the vulnerable.

But Anderson said specific legislation targetting human trafficking would be a better alternative, noting that the administration’s approach fails to even clearly define what forced labour is.

Hong Kong's efforts to tackle human trafficking have come under fire in recent years, with the US government accusing the SAR of not doing enough to fight the problem.

The US State Department has for three years running put Hong Kong on its Tier 2 Watch List, which is the second-lowest designation, and means the city doesn't fully meet the minimum standards for combatting trafficking, but is making significant efforts to do so.

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