PROTECTION
The government sustained strong protection efforts. In December 2014, the Congress approved additional protections for victims of crime, including more time to appeal the dismissal of cases against alleged traffickers. Authorities reported identifying 153 trafficking victims in 2014, an increase from 127 in 2013. Of the 153 victims identified, seven were minors, and seven had been subjected to forced labor.The government allocated 4.9 million euro ($5.9 million) for victims of trafficking across ministries, including 2 million euro ($2.4 million) to NGOs providing shelter and services to victims, compared with 1.5 million euro ($1.8 million) for NGOs in 2013. Since 2013, the government has used a protocol to identify trafficking victims developed with NGO input. NGOs reported good cooperation with law enforcement in the identification and referral of victims, including NGO participation in raids on brothels and locations where victims may have been present. NGOs provided victims temporary shelter and access to legal, medical, and psychological services. One NGO assisted 83 victims in 2014, of which 25 were referred by Spanish authorities. Another NGO in Catalonia assisted 117 victims, 28 of whom had been referred by the Catalan regional police per a cooperative agreement. Specialized centers for child victims of crime and seven trafficking shelters were available to assist child trafficking victims. Two non-trafficking-specific shelters were available for adult male victims. In December 2014, the government released, in collaboration with NGOs, an updated guide of available shelters and service providers for sex trafficking victims.
Under Spanish law, foreign victims were able to request a renewable residence permit for up to five years based on their cooperation with law enforcement or, in some cases, on the basis of their personal situation without regard to whether they assisted law enforcement.Victims could also receive assistance to return to their country of origin, unless required to remain in Spain to participate in a criminal prosecution. The government granted reflection periods—time in which victims could recover while deciding whether to assist law enforcement—to 35 victims in 2014, compared with 71 in 2013, and granted 20 temporary residence permits to victims who agreed to assist law enforcement, compared with 64 in 2013. In May 2014, the government granted asylum to a Mexican woman who escaped a drug and sex trafficking network in Mexico, making her the second victim of sex trafficking to be granted asylum on those grounds. Under the 2012 Penal Code Reform approved in March 2015, victims are not prosecuted for any unlawful acts committed as a direct result of being subjected to trafficking. However, some victims who refused to testify against

perpetrators have been detained and deported as illegal aliens.

PREVENTION
The government sustained strong prevention efforts during the reporting period. The new position of the National Rapporteur on Trafficking in People was created in April 2014.The National Rapporteur is a deputy ministerial-level position in the Ministry of the Interior.The health ministry managed the national anti-trafficking working group, which included the Ministries of Interior, Justice, and Labor.The government did not update the 2009-2012 National Action Plan to Combat Trafficking in Human Beings as planned in 2014, though two key elements of the plan continued to be operational: funding for NGOs to provide victim assistance and semiannual coordination meetings among ministries and NGOs. The government continued prevention efforts through public awareness campaigns and operated three hotlines to report suspected cases of sex trafficking.
The Civil Guard created a special anti-trafficking unit and made labor exploitation a strategic focus in 2014. The Civil Guard conducted approximately 1,500 inspections related to sex trafficking in 2014, compared with 1,205 in 2013, and 889 inspections related to labor trafficking, compared with 205 in 2013. Civil Guard operations identified 49 sex trafficking victims and seven labor trafficking victims in 2014, compared with 44 and 97 in 2013, respectively. The government discouraged newspapers from publishing classified ads for sexual services offered by individuals engaged in prostitution, many of whom were thought to be trafficking victims. The government did not make efforts to reduce the demand for commercial sex acts or forced labor. The government maintained a website designed with UNICEF to warn potential Spanish child sex tourists they could be subject to prosecution under Spanish law for criminal acts committed abroad, but no such prosecutions were reported. Spanish troops received anti-trafficking training prior to their deployment abroad as part of international peacekeeping missions.The government provided anti-trafficking training for its diplomatic personnel.

SRI LANKA:  Tier 2 Watch List  
Sri Lanka is primarily a source and, to a lesser extent, a destination country for men, women, and children subjected to forced labor and sex trafficking. Some of the Sri Lankan men, women, and children who migrate to the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Afghanistan to work in the construction, garment, and domestic service sectors are subsequently subjected to forced labor. Before emigrating from Sri Lanka, many migrant workers go into debt to pay high recruitment fees imposed by unscrupulous labor recruitment agencies—most of them members of Sri Lanka’s Association of Licensed Foreign Employment Agencies—and their unlicensed sub-agents. Migrant laborers are advanced money as an incentive to move abroad, only to be trapped in debt bondage upon arrival at their destination. Some recruitment agencies commit fraud by changing the agreed upon job, employer, conditions, or salary after the migrant’s arrival. Some Sri Lankan women are subjected to forced prostitution in Jordan, Maldives, Malaysia, Singapore, and other countries.
Within the country, women and children are subjected to sex trafficking in brothels. Boys are more likely than girls to be forced into prostitution in coastal areas for child sex tourism. Children,

individuals with physical deformities, and those from socially vulnerable groups are forced to beg or engage in criminal activity in Sri Lanka’s largest cities. Children are also reportedly subjected to bonded labor and forced labor in dry-zone farming areas on plantations, and in the fireworks and fish-drying industries. Some child domestic workers in Colombo, generally from the Tamil tea estate sector, are subjected to physical, sexual, and mental abuse, nonpayment of wages, and restrictions of movement—indicators of labor trafficking. A small number of women from Asia, Central Asia, Europe, and the Middle East have been subjected to forced prostitution in Sri Lanka in recent years. Police accept bribes to permit brothels to operate, some of which exploited trafficking victims, and sub-agents collude with officials to procure fake or falsified travel documents to facilitate travel of Sri Lankans abroad.
The Government of Sri Lanka does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so. Despite these measures, the government did not demonstrate overall increasing anti-trafficking efforts compared to the previous reporting period; therefore Sri Lanka is placed on Tier 2 Watch List for a third consecutive year. Sri Lanka was granted a waiver from an otherwise required downgrade to Tier 3 because its government has a written plan that, if implemented, would constitute making significant efforts to bring itself into compliance with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking, and it has committed to devoting sufficient resources to implement that plan. The government approved guidelines for the identification and referral of victims to protective services and organized trafficking awareness campaigns. However, for the fourth consecutive year, authorities failed to convict any traffickers under Sri Lanka’s trafficking statute—indicative of a continued lack of understanding of trafficking and inability to adequately investigate these crimes. Rather, the government convicted one trafficker under a procurement statute—a decrease compared with 12 in 2013—which allowed for lower penalties than the trafficking statute. Also, provisions for victim protection were inadequate, as the government provided no specialized services to male victims, incarcerated sex trafficking victims, and mixed child victims with criminals in state institutions.