The State Department’s annual report on modern slavery, bureaucratically entitled “Trafficking in Persons,” came out this week. A country that had been noticeably absent from previous reports was included: the United States.

The evaluation of the United States was not marked with apologies or wringing of hands but was a sober, detailed analysis of what the U.S. is doing right and where it needs to improve. This must have taken some internal battles with the Department of Justice, which for years has issued vanilla assessments saying that everything was admirable.
 
While the U.S.’s Tier One rating may be arguable, we certainly do as well as the numerous Western European countries that have automatically been given Tier One ratings since the report’s inception. To be sure, the Annual Report still dodges, as always, giving the lowest rankings to governments we want to please, e.g., Mexico, India, and Russia. Also odd is the positive analysis of U.N. peacekeepers, one of the biggest promoters of sex slavery in the world. Nonetheless, the report is the only comprehensive analysis of modern slavery throughout the world, and the analysis, if not always the ratings, remains trenchant and informative. The secretary’s inclusion of the United States will give added credibility to this country’s effort to lead a 21st-century abolitionist movement.

– John R. Miller was director of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons in the U.S. State Department from 2002-2006.