The “2026 Trafficking in Persons Report”, cooked up by the US Department of State, places Hong Kong in Tier 3, a designation reserved for jurisdictions deemed to have made no significant efforts to eliminate trafficking. The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government has rejected and condemned this ranking as baseless and politically motivated. A careful reading of the so-called report supports that rejection, because the document repeatedly acknowledges measures that contradict its conclusion while extending the United States a level of indulgence it denies others.
The report applies double standards in its “metric”, as ample evidence suggests. Comparing the report’s criteria with other international assessments, which often recognize Hong Kong’s efforts, the report is evidently biased.
Consider first the question of victim identification. The report complains that Hong Kong identified no victims exploited within the city despite an estimated 370,000 foreign domestic workers. This reasoning ridiculously treats the absence of a particular figure the drafters have desired for as proof of negligence. Yet the same report notes that the SAR government conducted approximately 12,100 initial screenings in 2025, revised its two-tiered screening mechanism, required officers to document decisions with explicit justification, and funded shelters, counseling, and repatriation. A government that undertakes these measures is not indifferent to exploitation. It has simply chosen an evidentiary threshold that does not presume foreign domestic workers are latent trafficking victims. The report treats the refusal to inflate numbers as a deficiency, when it should reflect a commitment to accuracy over performative statistics.
The report’s criticism of Hong Kong’s legal framework reveals a similar inconsistency. It faults the government for relying on provisions of the Crimes Ordinance and other laws rather than enacting a single comprehensive anti-trafficking statute. This criticism ignores the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal’s ruling that specific legislation criminalizing forced labor is not required under the Hong Kong Bill of Rights. A jurisdiction is entitled to determine its own legal architecture, especially when its courts have examined the question and found the existing framework sufficient. The demand for a specific law is not a neutral technical recommendation; it is illegitimate political pressure to force Hong Kong, an independent jurisdiction, to conform to certain legislative models, regardless of Hong Kong’s constitutional context.
The report notes that Hong Kong prosecuted fewer suspected traffickers and convicted only two, one of whom received a sentence of less than one year. It also acknowledges ongoing prosecutions of four defendants and the arrest of 203 people for crimes potentially related to sex trafficking. The report fails to explain why these enforcement actions fall short of significant effort.
By contrast, the US retains Tier 1 status despite an expired national action plan and reduced federal funding for victim services. A self-assessment that rewards the US’ own lapsed action plan while penalizing another jurisdiction that has increased training and screening is not an evaluation. It is a political verdict in search of a justification. The report deliberately ignores Hong Kong’s ongoing anti-trafficking efforts, which should be considered in a fair assessment.
The report’s analysis of labor recruitment is equally selective. It accuses Hong Kong of “failing” to regulate employment agencies effectively. Yet, the SAR’s Labour Department received 373 complaints and prosecuted five employment agencies. The report fails to explain why these enforcement actions are inadequate, nor does it compare them to the US’ own record of labor-trafficking prosecutions, which remains disproportionately small relative to the size of its economy and workforce. The two-week rule requiring foreign domestic workers to return home after contract termination is presented as a “vulnerability”, but the report fails to note that the US imposes similar conditions on many temporary foreign workers, including those on H-2A and H-2 B visas, who must leave the US when their employment ends. The report’s silence on this parallel is not an oversight. It deliberately omits this to allow the US to claim Tier 1 status while condemning others’ similar requirement as “vulnerability”.
The report also faults Hong Kong for not applying the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, citing concerns that allowing victims to remain would undermine immigration controls. This is a policy disagreement, not a failure. Hong Kong has a liberal visa regime and thus legitimate concerns about overstayers and illegal migrants. The US, for its part, has not ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, or the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. It nonetheless positions itself as the arbiter of global anti-trafficking standards. A jurisdiction that selectively adheres to international instruments while grading others on their compliance is not a neutral evaluator, nor a legitimate one. It participates in a political exercise dressed in the language of “human rights”.
In a nutshell, the “Tier 3 ranking” is not a valid measurement of Hong Kong’s efforts. It is simply a political instrument that punishes a jurisdiction for declining to adopt a foreign-dictated legislative model, for refusing to inflate victim statistics, and for maintaining immigration controls that the US itself practices in full force. The US can claim Tier 1 status because it writes the rules, grades its own paper, and treats its own expired action plan and reduced victim funding as natural while treating Hong Kong’s increased screenings, expanded training, and funded repatriations as insufficient. That is not evaluation. That is brazen self-exoneration and hypocrisy. Hong Kong’s legal system is robust, its enforcement efforts are measurable, and its commitment to combating trafficking is genuine. The “Tier 3 ranking” says less about Hong Kong than about the wickedness of the drafters.
The author is a solicitor, a Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area lawyer, and a China-appointed attesting officer.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
