PROTECTION
The government made inadequate efforts to identify and protect victims. The government reported identifying and referring 10 trafficking victims to shelter services, including seven Bangladeshis, two Indonesians, and one Ethiopian. Information on the ages and genders of the victims was unavailable.The government reported the shelter provided basic lodging, psychological counseling, legal services, and medical care to victims. This is comparable to the nine victims referred to shelter services in 2013.The government did not proactively identify victims of trafficking among vulnerable groups, such as migrant workers and women in prostitution. Instead, victims were required to identify themselves and report abuses to authorities.The government continued to treat potential forced labor cases as labor violations and not identify or provide protection services to potential forced labor victims.The government lacked a referral process to guide officials in transferring identified trafficking victims to government-run protection services, such as shelter, or to refer victims to NGOs for assistance. The lack of identification and referral procedures prevented victims from accessing protection services and made them susceptible to being inappropriately incarcerated, fined, or otherwise penalized for unlawful acts committed as a direct result of being subjected to human trafficking.The government did not increase protections for domestic workers, who are not covered by Oman’s labor law.The government continued to require expatriate laborers be bound to the terms of their employment contract or leave the country for a minimum of two years before returning to Oman to obtain a new employer. This remained a significant concern as it compelled workers to endure situations where they were subjected to exploitation, non-payment of wages, or even abuse for fear of returning jobless to their home countries.
The government continued to operate and fund a permanent shelter that could accommodate up to 50 women and child victims of forced labor or sex trafficking, but the shelter remained

underused due to the government’s weak victim identification efforts. Victims in the shelter could not leave the premises unchaperoned, but they could reportedly request shelter employees to accompany them offsite. Oman continued to lack shelter services available for male victims of trafficking, although major source country embassies continued to operate their own shelters available for men and women. Victims were permitted to stay in Oman on a case-by-case basis but were not permitted to work while awaiting court proceedings. The government did not provide foreign victims with legal alternatives to removal to countries in which they may face retribution or hardship.

PREVENTION
The government sustained minimal efforts to prevent human trafficking. A working group within the inter-ministerial anti- trafficking committee met regularly, but had limited effectiveness in coordinating anti-trafficking efforts.The Joint Group on Manpower Workers consulted regularly with diplomats from several source countries in efforts to promote ways to protect male and female expatriates.The government blacklisted seven companies for illegal recruitment practices during the reporting period. In 2014, the ROP placed public awareness announcements in local English and Arabic newspapers informing citizens that confiscating or otherwise holding the passport of an expatriate worker was illegal and could lead to prosecution and a jail sentence.The government continued to require employers to post labor law regulations in the languages of their workers in prominent locations at worksites. The government did not report efforts to reduce the demand for commercial sex acts in Oman.The government implemented an anti-trafficking training, led by an international organization, for more than 40 diplomatic personnel and other government officials in January 2015.

PAKISTAN:  Tier  2 Watch List    
Pakistan is a source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to forced labor and sex trafficking. The country’s largest human trafficking problem is bonded labor, in which an initial debt assumed by a worker as part of the terms of employment is exploited, ultimately entrapping other family members, sometimes for generations. Bonded labor is concentrated in Sindh and Punjab provinces, but also takes place in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces, in agriculture and brick-making, and, to a lesser extent, in fisheries, mining, and carpet-making. Some feudal landlords and brick kiln owners are affiliated with political parties or hold government positions and use their influence to protect their involvement in bonded labor. In some cases, when bonded laborers attempt to escape or seek legal redress, police return them to their traffickers, who hold laborers and their families in private jails. Children are bought, sold, rented, or kidnapped and placed in organized begging rings, domestic servitude, small shops, brick kilns, and prostitution. Begging ringmasters sometimes maim children to earn more money. NGOs report boys are particularly vulnerable to sex trafficking around hotels, truck stops, bus stations, and shrines. Illegal labor agents charge high recruitment fees to parents for giving work to their children, some of whom are subjected to forced labor and forced into prostitution.Trafficking experts describe a structured system for exploiting women and girls in prostitution, including physical markets in which victims are offered for sale. Reports indicate police accept bribes to ignore prostitution in

general, some of which may include sex trafficking. Women and girls are also sold into forced marriages; in some cases their new “husbands” prostitute them in Iran or Afghanistan. In other cases, including some organized by extra-judicial courts, girls are used as chattel to settle debts or disputes. Non-state militant groups kidnap children, buy them from destitute parents, or coerce parents with threats or fraudulent promises into giving their children away; these armed groups force children to spy, fight, or die as suicide bombers in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Pakistan’s large number of internally displaced persons, due to natural disasters and domestic military operations, are vulnerable to trafficking.
Many Pakistani men and women migrate voluntarily to the Gulf states and Europe for low-skilled employment—such as domestic service, driving, and construction work; some become victims of labor trafficking. False job offers and high recruitment fees charged by illegal labor agents or sub-agents of licensed Pakistani overseas employment promoters entrap Pakistanis into sex trafficking and bonded labor. Some Pakistani children and adults with disabilities are forced to beg in Iran. Pakistan is a destination country for men, women, and children subjected to forced labor—particularly from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. Women and girls from Afghanistan, China, Russia, Nepal, Iran, Bangladesh, Uzbekistan, and Azerbaijan are reportedly subjected to sex trafficking in Pakistan. Refugees from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Burma, as well as religious and ethnic minorities such as Hazaras, are particularly vulnerable to trafficking in Pakistan.
The Government of Pakistan does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so. In May 2014, the Federal Investigative Agency (FIA) established a research and analysis center responsible for collecting and analyzing data and trends related to human trafficking and smuggling.The FIA and police also began to use standard operating procedures for the identification and referral of trafficking victims to protective services, although it is unclear how widely the procedures were disseminated. Despite these measures, the government did not demonstrate overall increasing anti-trafficking efforts compared to the previous reporting period; therefore, Pakistan is placed onTier 2 Watch List for a second consecutive year.The government showed insufficient political will and capacity to address trafficking fully, as evidenced by ineffective law enforcement efforts, official complicity, penalization of victims, and the continued conflation of migrant smuggling and human trafficking by many government officials.