The Macau government has expressed its "strong opposition" to the "extremely unreasonable and unacceptable" remarks about Macau in the latest US State Department's 2021 Trafficking in Persons Report.
A statement by the Macau Government Information Bureau (GCS) released on Friday said that concerning the human trafficking situation in Macau "the self-styled report... has for years continuously ignored objective facts [through] wrong interpretations, false deductions and unreasonable speculation.
"This is especially seen by the bias against Macau's legal system and independent judicial system, and the false accusations [regarding] the efficacy of Macau's governance."
The statement stressed that the Macau government "is determined to combat... trafficking in persons, and has been relentless in its efforts in this regard," adding that the "government's law-enforcement effort in combatting human trafficking has been effectively carried out under the supervision of the local judiciary."
According to the statement, "the decline in cases - relating to human trafficking and exploitation of labour - recorded in recent years demonstrates the efficient collaboration between the government and local communities."
The US report included Macau in its so-called Tier 2 Watch List, which refers to jurisdictions where the “estimated number of victims of severe forms of trafficking is very significant or is significantly increasing”, as well as those that allegedly fail “to provide evidence of increasing efforts to combat severe forms of trafficking in persons from the previous year”.
The GCS statement described Macau's Tier 2 ranking by the US State Department as "extremely unreasonable and unacceptable".
The statement underlined the ongoing efforts by the government's Human Trafficking Deterrent Measures Concern Committee in preventing and tackling human trafficking and protecting human trafficking victims in conjunction with non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
