There was a glaring mistake in Berhnard Lazareff's 'Kanchha's life' (#207) where he writes 'the US State department forgot to mention [Nepal] in its 4th annual Trafficking in Persons Report last month. They nailed Bangladesh, Burma, Cuba, Ecuador, Equatorial Guinea, Sierra Leone, Sudan and Venezuela, but India, Nepal and China were omitted'. I would like to invite Lazareff to visit our website (www.nepal.usembassy
.gov) on which the text of the 2004 Trafficking in Persons Report is available. The report is divided into three tiers:
Tier 1 Countries whose governments fully comply with the Act's minimum standards.

Tier 2 Countries whose governments do not fully comply with the Act's minimum standards but are making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with those standards. Tier 2 Watch List Countries whose governments do not fully comply with the Act's minimum standards but are making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with those standards, and: The absolute number of victims of severe forms of trafficking is very significant or is significantly increasing, or there is a failure to provide evidence of increasing efforts to combat severe forms of trafficking in persons from the previous year, or the determination that a country is making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with minimum standards was based on commitments by the country to take additional future steps over the next year.

Tier 3 Countries whose governments do not fully comply with the minimum standards and are not making significant efforts to do so. In the current report, Nepal and China were placed on Tier 2, while India was placed on the Tier 2 Watch List. I would strongly urge Lazareff to access and read the full report so he may be better informed.

Constance Colding Jones,
Public Affairs Officer,
US Embassy, Kathmandu