Myanmar praised over trafficking efforts The US state department has commended Myanmar's efforts to curb human trafficking while warning Thailand it could be downgraded in its annual global assessment of human trafficking. Washington's 2012 Trafficking in Persons report, launched by the US secretary of state Hillary Clinton on Tuesday, grades countries in four categories or "tiers" by standards set out in the US Trafficking Victims Protection Act for the elimination of trade in humans. The rankings were "based more on the extent of government action to combat trafficking than on the size of the problem," the state department said. Since the report began in 2000, Myanmar has been in the lowest status, tier three, but has now been upgraded a notch to tier two watch list in the latest TIP report. The ranking is applied to governments that do not fully meet the act's minimum standards but are deemed to be making "significant efforts" to comply. In Myanmar's case, the shift is significant because it could lessen US opposition to full resumption of aid and business ties with the country. At the World Bank, the US as the most influential member has consistently cited Myanmar's tier three TIP status in its opposition to resuming lending to the country. The World Bank recently resumed modest technical assistance to Myanmar but has delayed any decision on full lending - citing arrears of almost $400m, and $500m owed to the Asian Development Bank. A bigger problem, say western diplomats, is the mixed stance of the US government and Congress on restoring full economic ties. Mrs Clinton last month said the US would temporarily suspend bilateral sanctions through presidential waivers and executive orders. However, leading members of Congress last week vowed to renew legislation that would bar Myanmar's exports to the US for another year. The TIP report, however, praised the Myanmar government's "unprecedented steps" to address forced labour and the conscription of child soldiers, among other abuses, saying they amounted to "a credible commitment to undertake anti-trafficking reforms over the coming year." It also commended Myanmar's repeal of laws sanctioning the government's use of forced labour, and the adoption of an action programme in conjunction with the International Labour Organisation to eradicate forced labour by 2015. The ILO, citing such reforms, voted last week at its annual conference in Geneva to remove restrictions on Myanmar and admit it to membership. At the same time, the TIP report warned that human trafficking - including conscription of child soldiers and forced labour - by government officials and private actors "continues to be a significant problem" in Myanmar. Thailand, meanwhile, escaped an automatic downgrade from tier two to tier three TIP status when Mrs Clinton granted an exceptional waiver. Although Thailand had shown no new effort to address human trafficking for a third consecutive year, the waiver was granted because "its government has a written plan that, if implemented, would constitute making significant efforts to meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking," the report said. Experts on migrant labour in Thailand expressed doubt about Bangkok's plan. Andy Hall, of Thailand's Mahidol university, said there were 2m-3m low-skilled migrant workers in the country, 80 per cent from Myanmar and the rest from Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. Mr Hall, who documents abuses of migrant workers and helped organise the recent visit by Myanmar's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi to Burmese migrant worker centres near Bangkok, said only about 700,000 migrant workers had legal status, with passports. Hundreds of thousands more were trafficking victims, he said. "In my experience, trafficking victims receive far worse treatment than irregular migrants, who frequently gain the opportunity to register after being smuggled into the country," Mr Hall said. For undocumented trafficking victims, their only formal option if they enter the Thai government's trafficking protection mechanisms is detention in poorly resourced rehabilitation centres for protracted periods and then deportation. Worldwide, there are almost 21m victims of "modern slavery" throughout the world - about 55 per cent of them women and girls - according to the 2012 TIP report. The figure, based on ILO data, is almost double the ILO's first estimate in 2005 of 12.3m victims of forced labour and sex trafficking. Altogether, 29 countries were upgraded in the 2012 report, including the Czech Republic, which regained tier one status on new anti-trafficking efforts after being the only country last year to lose a top ranking. Iceland, Israel and Nicaragua were also promoted to tier one, while Portugal, Nigeria and Kenya were downgraded to tier two. Others such as North Korea remained on the tier three blacklist, while Syria was the only country to be downgraded to that category amid the Assad regime's violent repression of the population.