I have to clarify that no matter how perfect a person, or an entity is, no one is free from being a hypocrite. The following article came up in my Tweet stream just recently:

MFA questions credibility of US human trafficking report

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The Singapore Government questioned how the US could rank itself in Tier One, when it is well known that the US has been unable to stem a flood of illegal workers, many of whom are trafficked by organised criminal gangs.

 

MFA said that the US has not been able to cope adequately with the problem and that is among the reasons why immigration is such a hot political issue in the US.

 

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• The report, especially the section on United States of America is biased. As this report is written by U.S.  Department of State, the author(s) are in privy of data and internal analysis of the situation in U.S.. In the section on Singapore, the article tends to be more general. I could see many “some”s and very little data is included in the text. I am sure that the Singapore authorities are happy to comply with request for information with respect to such report.
• There is no independence in this report as I highlighted earlier, it is written by U.S. Department of State. A self-review, as I have learnt in my audit lecture, is a threat to the independence and objectivity of the report. It also uses U.S.’ Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 as a standard. As an additional suggestion to what MFA is giving, U.S. should use the 2000 UN TIP Protocol instead. The report should also be an international effort, with reviews conducted by a group of multi-national academics.