Report: Unseemly Politics Played Role in State Department Upgrade of Malaysia on Human Rights

The U.S. State Department's upgrade of Malaysia from the ranks of the world's worst human rights offenders happened despite objections from the agency's own human rights experts, according to Reuters in a report out this week.

In its latest "Trafficking in Persons Report," the U.S. State Department's annual assessment of countries' efforts to combat human trafficking, the agency upgraded Malaysia from the lowest Tier 3 category to Tier 2 status. A bipartisan group of 160 members of Congress had also strongly urged U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry not to upgrade Malaysia but to no avail.

CWAers, allies and other activists protest the TPP in front of a U.S. Senate office building.

The action came despite reports that Malaysia has not made progress on this issue, made the country eligible to participate in the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal.

The Fast Track Authority on trade deals that Congress granted the Obama administration in May included a provision barring negotiating with Tier 3 countries, or "countries whose governments do not fully comply with the minimum standards [in the Trafficking Victims Protection Act]."

Reuters' report, based on interviews with more than a dozen sources in Washington and foreign capitals, that "the government office set up to independently grade global efforts to fight human trafficking was repeatedly overruled by senior American diplomats and pressured into inflating assessments of 14 strategically important countries."

The United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing today to grill State Department officials about the upgrade.