Myanmar says ‘worst human-trafficker’ label by US is ‘regrettable’

Myanmar’s new civilian government rebuffed a United States decision to brand the country as one of the world’s worst human-trafficking offenders on Friday, calling the move “regrettable” at a time when the nascent democracy is still getting on its feet.

The US State Department downgraded Myanmar in its annual human-trafficking report on Thursday, putting the former junta-run country into the lowest Tier 3 category for failing to combat people smuggling and slavery.

Years of poverty and corruption under Myanmar’s former military rulers have fastened the Southeast Asian nation as a major source of forced labour and sex trafficking, often to neighbouring countries.

Aung San Suu Kyi, the democracy activist who championed a decades-long fight against the former junta, is now leading Myanmar’s first civilian government in nearly half a century.

Washington has been keen to support her on the road to democratic reform.

“It is regrettable that the 2016 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report of the US Department of State drops Myanmar from Tier 2 Watch List status to Tier 3 at a time when the new democratic government is stepping up its efforts to protect its migrant workers and victims of human-trafficking and forced labour,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement printed in state media.