[From the introductory text accompanying this report on the U.S. Department of State website: "In most cases, the Interim Assessment is intended to serve as a tool by which to gauge the anti-trafficking progress of countries that may be in danger of slipping a tier in the upcoming June 2010 TIP Report and to give them guidance on how to avoid a Tier 3 ranking. It is a tightly focused progress report, assessing the concrete actions a government has taken to address the key deficiencies highlighted in the June 2009 TIP Report. The Interim Assessment covers actions undertaken between the beginning of May – the cutoff for data covered in the June TIP Report – and November. Readers are requested to refer to the annual TIP Report for an analysis of large-scale efforts and a description of the trafficking problem in each particular country or territory."]

The Government of China has made progress in some areas to combat trafficking in persons since the release of the 2009 Report. Forced adult and forced child labor remained a problem throughout the country. Government efforts described as addressing human trafficking, however, continued to be aimed largely at the trafficking of women and children.

The government did not take steps to enact legislation to prohibit all forms of trafficking, though it ratified the UN TIP Protocol in December 2009. Reported prosecutions and convictions of trafficking offenders increased in 2009; certain high profile cases have yet to lead to prosecutions, however, notably the 2008 Dongguan child labor scandal. In April 2009, Chinese officials collaborated with Costa Rican authorities to arrest members of an international ring that trafficked Chinese children to Costa Rica for forced labor. In July 2009, a woman who forced ten minors into prostitution in Guizhou province was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Authorities took steps to identify and protect trafficking victims; there were no systematic procedures in place on a national level to proactively identify victims, however. China appeared to continue to lack comprehensive victim protection services throughout the country, although NGOs along the southern border reported improvements in victim protection efforts by government officials in 2009. All these efforts, however, need to be strengthened significantly. Some trafficking victims continued to be punished for unlawful acts committed as a direct result of being trafficked.

China continued to build counter-trafficking and victim protection activities with bordering countries, most notably with Burma, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand; Chinese trafficking victims abroad have little access to resources or protection, however. There remained no legal alternatives to repatriation for foreign victims of trafficking, who are returned to their country of origin upon identification. The Chinese government continued to classify all North Koreans as "economic migrants" and to deport them back to North Korea.

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