Trafficking in persons, or human trafficking, refers to the subjection of men, women, and children to compelled service for the purposes of exploitation. Examples of human trafficking include trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation, including child sexual exploitation; forced labor, including bonded labor, involuntary domestic servitude, and forced child labor; and the unlawful recruitment and use of child soldiers. Reports suggest that human trafficking is a global phenomenon, victimizing millions of people and contributing to a multi-billion dollar criminal industry. It is a centuries-old problem that, despite international efforts, continues to occur in virtually every country in the world. On June 30, 2016, the State Department released its latest edition of the flagship annual U.S. publication on international human trafficking, the Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report , discussed further in the " State Department Reporting Requirements " section below. Briefly, the TIP Report categorized 185 countries, including the United States, into four tiers, based on their respective governments' level of effort to address human trafficking: Tier 1 (best), Tier 2, Tier 2 Watch List, and Tier 3 (worst). An additional three countries were designated as "Special Cases" without a tier ranking because of political instability and the inability to obtain relevant government information. Only Tier 1 countries, approximately 19.5% of the countries assessed, were fully compliant with U.S.-established minimum standards to eliminate severe forms of human trafficking; the rest were considered noncompliant and varied in terms of their level of effort to improve. Among the least compliant were the 27 countries identified as Tier 3 in the 2016 TIP Report , including 8 that had previously been Tier 2 Watch List: Burma, Djibouti, Haiti, Papua New Guinea, Sudan, Suriname, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. As required by law, Tier 3 countries are subjected to selected foreign assistance restrictions, unless the President determines that continuing to provide aid is in the U.S. national interest. The nongovernmental organization Walk Free Foundation also provided a global evaluation of human trafficking trends in its 2016 Global Slavery Index report. The 2016 Global Slavery Index report estimated that some 45.8 million (up from 35.8 million estimated in 2014) individuals worldwide were exploited through human trafficking, forced labor, debt bondage, forced or servile marriage, or commercial sexual exploitation. In contrast to the TIP Report , which categorizes countries solely on the basis of government efforts, the Global Slavery Index also seeks to provide country-by-country estimates of people experiencing conditions tantamount to modern slavery. For example, the 2016 Global Slavery Index reported the following: Countries with the greatest prevalence of their population subjected to "modern slavery" included North Korea (for comparison, the State Department listed North Korea as Tier 3 in the 2016 TIP Report ), Uzbekistan (Tier 3), Cambodia (Tier 2), India (Tier 2), and Qatar (Tier 2 Watch List). Countries with the highest absolute numbers of people subjected to modern slavery, according to the 2016 Global Slavery Index , included India (Tier 2 in the 2016 TIP Report ), China (Tier 2 Watch List), Pakistan (Tier 2 Watch List), Bangladesh (Tier 2), and Uzbekistan (Tier 3). Countries taking the least action to address human trafficking included North Korea (Tier 3 in the 2016 TIP Report ), Iran (Tier 3), Eritrea (Tier 3), Equatorial Guinea (Tier 3), Papua New Guinea (Tier 3), Guinea (Tier 2 Watch List), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC, Tier 2 Watch List), and South Sudan (Tier 3). Several other older, but nevertheless widely referenced global reports on human trafficking include a 2014 report prepared by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and two reports prepared by the International Labor Organization (ILO). Surveying U.N. member countries, UNODC reported in 2014 that, between 2010 and 2012, 124 countries had identified trafficking victims representing 152 nationalities. The UNODC report cautioned that its estimates were minimum figures, as it is generally recognized that the actual scope and prevalence of human trafficking is far higher than officially reported. The UNODC report also revealed that trafficking operations were seemingly as diverse as they were widespread, ranging from individuals exploiting their partners or employees to highly sophisticated transnational criminal syndicates involving a large number of victims. In 2012, the ILO estimated that some 20.9 million men, women, and children were subjected to forced labor, including trafficking, debt bondage, and slavery-like conditions. In 2014, the ILO followed up with an analysis of the financial value of forced labor and related trafficking on the international economy, estimating that it generated $150 billion in illegal profits annually. According to the ILO, two-thirds of this total amount stemmed from commercial sexual exploitation, while the rest resulted from forced labor. Key forced labor sectors included the construction, manufacturing, and utilities industries (generating some $34 billion in annual illicit income), followed by agriculture ($9 billion) and domestic work ($8 billion). The U.S. government, including Congress, has played a leading role in international efforts to combat human trafficking, particularly through the enactment of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA, Division A of P.L. 106-386 ) and its subsequent amendments and reauthorizations (TVPRAs of 2003, 2005, 2008, and 2013). Other related legislation has included the Child Soldiers Prevention Act of 2008 (CSPA of 2008, Title IV of P.L. 110-457 ) and Title XVII of the National Defense Authorization Act, Fiscal Year 2013 ("End Trafficking in Government Contracting," P.L. 112-239 ). In the 114 th Congress, trade and customs legislation addressed human trafficking, including the Bipartisan Congressional Trade Priorities and Accountability Act of 2015 (Title I of P.L. 114-26 ) and the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015 ( P.L. 114-125 ). Other legislation on international aspects of human trafficking have also been enacted, including appropriations, the International Megan's Law to Prevent Child Exploitation and Other Sexual Crimes Through Advanced Notification of Traveling Sex Offenders ( P.L. 114-119 ); and other country-specific statutes. See Appendix for further review of legislation in the 114 th Congress. In addition, recent Administrations have taken several steps to enhance U.S. responses to international human trafficking. Prior to enactment of the TVPA, in 1999, President Bill Clinton issued Executive Order 13126 on the "Prohibition of Acquisition of Products Produced by Forced or Indentured Child Labor." In 2002, President George W. Bush issued National Security Presidential Directive 22 on "Combating Trafficking in Persons." In 2012, President Barack Obama issued Executive Order 13627 on "Strengthening Protections Against Trafficking in Persons in Federal Contracts." In remarks at the Clinton Global Initiative in September 2012, President Obama described the fight against human trafficking as "one of the great human rights causes of our time" and emphasized the importance of the U.S. government in leading such efforts. The U.S. Department of State leads federal efforts to combat human trafficking. The Secretary of State chairs the President's Interagency Task Force (PITF) on Trafficking in Persons, and the Director of the State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (J/TIP) chairs the Senior Policy Operating Group (SPOG), a working-level interagency entity that coordinates the U.S. government's response to human trafficking. J/TIP also administers an international anti-trafficking grants program and annually prepares, with department-wide input, the congressionally mandated TIP Report . The State Department's J/TIP Office is one of seven organizational units with functional policy responsibilities that report to the Under Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights. Congress mandated the establishment of the J/TIP Office in the TVPA of 2000 and it is currently headed by Susan Coppedge, confirmed by the Senate in October 2015. Pursuant to the TVPA, the J/TIP director is responsible for advising the Secretary of State on human trafficking matters, coordinating foreign assistance programs across the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and serving as chair of the SPOG. In addition, the J/TIP director oversees the annual publication of the TIP Report , required by the TVPA, as well as the administration of an international grants program for projects seeking to combat human trafficking. For FY2015, J/TIP awarded more than $18 million in grants and cooperative agreements to nongovernmental and international organizations under this program. Moreover, J/TIP supports the Secretary of State in his role as chair of the PITF, liaises with the legislative branch on human trafficking matters, and addresses human trafficking priorities in multilateral fora. In early January 2016, Secretary of State John Kerry convened the statutorily mandated PITF, where senior officials representing 17 federal departments, agencies, and offices provided status updates on their organization's anti-trafficking activities. Secretary Kerry committed to raising human trafficking issues at every bilateral meeting and personally calling all foreign ministers whose countries were at risk of a downgrade in the 2016 TIP Report . Other key international human trafficking issues addressed at this meeting included ongoing efforts to address supply chain transparency and implement requirements to prevent human trafficking in U.S. federal procurement supply chains.