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Pakistan Could Face U.S. Aid Cuts over Human Trafficking

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12 April 2018 18:00 WIB

Staff rush Pakistani security personnel injured to hospital during a crackdown operation against militants who stormed the agriculture institute in Peshawar, Pakistan, Dec. 1, 2017. Pakistani police say gunmen have stormed a government complex in the northwestern city of Peshawar, killing an unconfirmed number of people. AP

TEMPO.CO, Islamabad - The Trump administration is warning Pakistan it could lose U.S. civilian aid worth tens of millions of dollars this year. It is possible to happen if Washington finds that the South Asian nation has not done enough to combat human trafficking, U.S. officials said.


An aid cutback would deal a fresh blow to U.S.-Pakistan relations following President Donald Trump’s suspension in January of some $2 billion in U.S. security assistance over what Trump said was Islamabad's failure to crack down on Afghan insurgent sanctuaries used for attacks into Afghanistan.

A large portion of U.S. civilian aid - $265 million in 2017, according to a source at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad – could be withheld if the State Department puts Pakistan on a list of worst global offenders in human trafficking in an annual report due out in June.

The funding is relatively modest for the size of Pakistan's economy. But Islamabad could suffer a heavier jolt if Washington also decides to oppose new assistance from international financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

These are all sanctions that the United States, under federal law, can impose on any country receiving the lowest grade on human trafficking unless Trump issues a full or partial waiver. He did so for most countries on last year's blacklist, following a pattern set by recent predecessors who were especially lenient on U.S. allies and partners.

Read: Death Toll Rises to 50 in IS-claimed Blast in Pakistan

By making good on its threat against Pakistan, the Trump administration would raise questions about whether it was using the Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report to pressure Islamabad to do more on counter-terrorism.

The report is not supposed to be influenced by other geopolitical considerations, but human rights groups accused the Trump administration last year, and the Obama administration before it, of sometimes prioritizing economic and security interests over human trafficking concerns.

Pakistani Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal told Reuters the country has "taken very stringent steps" against human trafficking and the issue "should not be used for political means to pressurize countries."

A senior Trump administration official said no decision on the ranking has been made, but that Pakistan, long an uneasy U.S. ally, has been told it can avoid a lower ranking - and a possible aid cut - only “if we see them making sincere efforts to address the problems that have been raised."

The U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, denied any link between Pakistan’s cooperation with Trump’s strategy to force the Afghan Taliban into peace talks and the possible loss of U.S. civilian assistance, stressing that any TIP decision would be based solely on Islamabad’s human trafficking record.

The State Department declined to comment, except to cite the penalties available under the U.S. anti-human trafficking law.

Pakistan has long rejected U.S. accusations that it provides Afghan Taliban and allied Haqqani network militants with sanctuaries from which they attack the Kabul government and U.S.-led foreign forces in Afghanistan.

REUTERS



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