AKIPRESS.COM - Mongolia is a source and, to a lesser extent, a destination country for men, women, and children subjected to forced labor and sex trafficking, said in the report on Trafficking in Persons done by the U.S. Department of State.

Mongolian men, women, and children are subjected to forced labor, and women are subjected to sex trafficking abroad,
primarily in China, Hong Kong and, to a lesser extent, Malaysia and Indonesia. Mongolian men are subjected to forced labor in Turkey, Kazakhstan, the United Arab Emirates, and the Czech Republic.

Mongolian women and girls are subjected to sex trafficking in Sweden. Women are subjected to domestic servitude or forced prostitution after entering into commercially brokered marriages to Chinese men and, with decreased frequency, South Korean men.

There have been reports over the past five years that Mongolian girls employed as contortionists, under contracts signed by their parents, have been subjected to forced labor and sometimes forced begging in Mongolia, Hong Kong, India, Singapore, and Turkey. The majority of repatriated Mongolian victims in 2014 were exploited in China.

Women and girls are subjected to sex trafficking in Mongolia in massage parlors, hotels, bars, and karaoke clubs. Traffickers sometimes use drugs or fraudulent social networking, online job opportunities, and English language programs to lure Mongolian victims into sex trafficking. NGO reports suggest an increasing number of victims from rural areas are subjected to sexual exploitation in Ulaanbaatar.

Previous reports allege Japanese tourists engage in child sex tourism in Mongolia. Mongolian children are sometimes forced to beg, steal, or work in the informal construction, horse racing, animal husbandry, mining, agricultural, and industrial sectors—often with the complicity of family members.

The vulnerability of some Filipina domestic workers in Mongolia to trafficking remains a concern, although immigration authorities noted the number of undocumented workers has decreased significantly. Thousands of North Korean and Chinese workers employed in Mongolia as contract laborers in construction, production, agriculture, forestry, fishing, hunting, factories, wholesale and retail trade, automobile maintenance, and mining are vulnerable to trafficking.

North Korean laborers reportedly do not have freedom of movement or choice of employment and receive sub-minimum wages while being subjected to harsh working and living conditions. Chinese workers have reported nonpayment of wages.

Corruption among Mongolian officials remains a significant problem in the country, impairing anti-trafficking efforts.
The Government of Mongolia does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so.

In 2014, the government passed five implementing regulations for the Law on Victim and Witness Protection, referred 36 potential trafficking victims to an anti-trafficking NGO for assistance, and promulgated a labor trafficking announcement on social media and television networks. The government maintained limited victim protection efforts in 2014. The government convicted one trafficker in 2014, compared with five in 2013 and began implementation of one
of the five regulations necessary to allow for full use of the 2012 anti-trafficking law. During the reporting year, the government reduced funding to an NGO-run shelter, and neither finalized nor implemented the national action plan to combat trafficking.