This story by inmediahk.net originally appeared on Global Voices on October 27, 2025.
The Hong Kong government issued a statement at the end of September expressing strong opposition to the US State Department’s rating of Hong Kong under the Tier 2 watchlist in its 2025 Trafficking in Persons Report. It claims the rating is unfair, lacks factual support, and is intended to smear Hong Kong’s reputation.
Over the past decade, there has been controversy over whether Hong Kong has a human trafficking problem. In 2015, the United Nations (UN) Office on Drugs and Crime designated Hong Kong International Airport as a transit point for human trafficking. This stems from the fact that, under China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) economic and trade cooperation policies, Chinese labor companies often arrange for mainland workers to transit through Hong Kong to work overseas. When these workers discover that working conditions do not meet their contracts or are exploited, abused, and forced to work without pay, they are subsequently identified as victims of human trafficking as they seek help in the host countries.
Since 2017, the United States has included Hong Kong on its human trafficking watchlist, one of the reasons being that Hong Kong has not signed the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (the Palermo Protocol), which was adopted by the UN in 2000, supplementing the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime.
The Protocol defines trafficking in persons as:
The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.
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In addition, it also requires signatories to prevent human trafficking through education, publicity, changing institutional injustice and social culture; protect victims from prosecution and cooperating with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to provide victims with support services such as housing, legal, educational, and psychological counseling; and strengthen the investigation, prosecution and punishment of all forms of exploitation, especially human trafficking crimes involving women and children.
As of November 2022, 180 countries had become parties to the Protocol, including China, which signed in 2010. Because Macau’s economy is centered around casinos, debt-fueled human trafficking is common. Consequently, the Macau government established the “Committee on Deterrent Measures to Prevent Trafficking in Persons” in 2007 and enacted anti-trafficking legislation in 2008. When the Chinese government signed the Protocol, it immediately took effect in Macau, but not Hong Kong, though both are designated as special administrative regions of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Currently, the US rates China and Macau under Tier 3 for failing to meet the Protocol’s basic requirements.
In recent years, as many Hong Kong residents have been lured to Southeast Asia under false employment schemes, calls for legislation to combat human trafficking have re-emerged. The authorities responded by stating that while Hong Kong has not signed the Palermo Protocol, various local laws already cover acts of human trafficking as defined in the Protocol.
The Security Bureau’s website lists a range of local laws preventing human trafficking-related offences, including the Crimes Ordinance (Cap. 200), which prohibits the trafficking of persons into or out of Hong Kong for prostitution; the Human Organ Transplant Ordinance (Cap. 465), which prohibits the commercial trade of human organs; the Immigration Ordinance (Cap. 115), which prohibits the arranging of unauthorized persons to enter Hong Kong and the employment of illegal workers; the Prevention of Child Pornography Ordinance (PCPO), the Employment Ordinance, and other criminal laws covering detention, fraud, abduction, and other offenses.
However, over the years, some legal experts and NGO workers have said the city’s laws to protect victims of human trafficking are inadequate. For example, since 2012, in the context of two local judicial review cases, some have pointed out that the city lacks the legal tools to combat forced labor and doesn’t have enough mechanisms to assist victims.
The first judicial review case involved a Pakistani domestic worker, ZN, who was smuggled into Hong Kong between 2007 and 2010. He was abused by his employer, forced to work 15 hours a day, seven days a week, without any wages, and frequently assaulted. He left Hong Kong in December 2010 and returned to the city in 2012. He filed complaints with the Immigration Department, the police, and other authorities, and ultimately, with the assistance of a Hong Kong NGO, filed a judicial review, alleging that the Hong Kong government had failed to protect his personal safety in accordance with the Hong Kong Bill of Rights Ordinance (HKBRO) prohibitions on slavery.
In 2016, the High Court ruled in favor of ZN’s claim that the government lacked a legal framework to address the crime of human trafficking involving forced labor. In 2018, the Court of Appeal acknowledged that government departments had failed to diligently investigate ZN’s forced labor conditions, but ruled that under the HKBFO, slavery does not equate to forced labor, and therefore, the law does not require the Hong Kong government to legislate specifically on human trafficking crimes. In 2020, the Court of Final Appeal reaffirmed the Court of Appeal’s ruling, but pointed out that the government has a responsibility to provide effective protection for victims of forced labor.
Another judicial review case involved a Filipina maid, CB, who was repeatedly molested by her employer in 2018. The employer was found guilty at the first trial and sentenced to 30 months in prison, but he was acquitted on appeal. The maid applied for judicial review, claiming that she was sexually exploited and that the police did not handle the case appropriately. The High Court ruled in favor of the maid in 2022 and stated that the police’s dereliction of duty was related to the lack of relevant forced labor laws in Hong Kong. In 2024, the Court of Appeal also agreed that the police had failed to fulfill their duty, but stated that the problem was unrelated to the legal framework. The court said that the city’s laws correspond to the Palermo Protocol, and it has relevant policy measures to prevent sexual exploitation and forced labor crimes. In 2025, the Court of Final Appeal held that there is no necessary connection between legislation and the prohibition of human trafficking crimes.
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While the US Human Trafficking report acknowledges the Hong Kong government’s efforts to eliminate human trafficking, the city still falls short of minimum international standards. The report states that despite the establishment of human trafficking indicators to identify and protect victims, only eight victims were identified in 2024 from 11,300 potential victims, seven of whom were Hong Kong residents lured to Southeast Asia for forced labor.
Furthermore, the US reported that 71 suspects arrested for human trafficking related to prostitution were ultimately not prosecuted for controlling and relying on prostitutes, which is related to human trafficking for sexual exploitation and carries heavier sentences of up to 10 to 14 years. Moreover, the US report highlights that while the Hong Kong police arrested 41 employers of foreign domestic workers in 2024 for assaulting or sexually assaulting them, they did not further investigate whether these cases qualified as human trafficking, nor did they identify the domestic workers as victims and provide them with protection.
Foreign domestic workers who are exploited and forced into labor by agencies and employers lack institutional support, and the Hong Kong government’s visa policy to prevent them from “job hopping” also limits their options, making them more vulnerable to exploitation, the US report noted. It added that a large number of NGOs have been pressured to disband since 2020, upon the enactment of the National Security Law (NSL), leading to a lack of avenues of assistance available to potential victims of human trafficking.
The report recommends that when cracking down on prostitution, the Hong Kong police should conduct investigations along the lines of human trafficking crimes, identifying those controlled by traffickers (especially those under the age of 18) as victims, providing them with assistance, and exempting them from criminal liability, so that they can help dismantle trafficking rings. It also suggests that the Hong Kong government should strengthen publicity and education on the rights of migrant workers, assist migrant workers exploited by agencies and employers, and abolish visa policies that penalize “job hopping,” thereby allowing migrant workers to freely choose their employers.
On September 30, the Hong Kong government rebuked the US report, dismissing it as unfounded. A spokesperson stated that human trafficking has never been a widespread problem in Hong Kong, and there is no evidence that criminal syndicates use Hong Kong as a destination or transit point for human trafficking. He disagreed with the US’s suggestion that the low number of identified victims casts doubt on its screening criteria and mechanisms.
The statement also notes that police conducted 102 prostitution raids in 2024, resulting in 254 arrests for operating a prostitution establishment or engaging in prostitution-related offenses under the Crimes Ordinance. Regarding foreign domestic workers, it states that the Employment Ordinance provides comprehensive protection and appropriate assistance to foreign domestic workers who have been abused or exploited.
[VP]
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