The Government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and is not making significant efforts to do so; therefore China remained on Tier 3. Despite the lack of significant efforts, the government took some steps to address trafficking, including by continuing to cooperate with international authorities to address forced and fraudulent marriages in China, a key trafficking vulnerability for foreign women and girls, and by continuing to seek accountability for officials complicit in commercial sex crimes that may have included sex trafficking.
However, state-sponsored forced labor intensified under the government’s mass detention and political indoctrination campaign against members of Muslim ethnic minority groups in Xinjiang, and authorities reportedly subjected Tibetans and other ethno-religious groups to similar conditions. For the second consecutive year, the government did not report identifying any trafficking victims or referring them to protective services. Authorities detained women arrested on suspicion of prostitution, sometimes for months and without screening for trafficking, and often forcibly returned foreign victims to their traffickers after they escaped and reported their abuses.
Adapted from TIP 2019 by the U.S. Department of State
