The Government of New Zealand fully meets the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking. The government continued to demonstrate serious and sustained efforts during the reporting period; therefore New Zealand remained on Tier 1. These efforts included obtaining eight convictions for trafficking-related crimes, initiating the fourth prosecution under the trafficking statute, cooperating with foreign law enforcement to prosecute trafficking crimes, and providing services to victims identified in previous years.
Although the government meets the minimum standards, it initiated only two trafficking investigations and did not identify or assist any sex trafficking victims. The government reported identifying few victims and prosecuting a low number of suspected traffickers. New Zealand girls and boys often from minority communities are exploited in sex trafficking. Young children and teenagers are recruited into prostitution by gang members, boyfriends, family members, or others.
Some victims are coerced into prostitution through drug dependencies or threats by family members. Unregulated and unlicensed immigration brokers operating in New Zealand and source countries, particularly in India and the Philippines, assist victims of labor exploitation in New Zealand obtain visas. Some foreign workers are charged excessive recruitment fees and experience unjustified salary deductions, non- or under-payment of wages, excessively long working hours, restrictions on their movement, passport retention, and contract alteration.
Some traffickers force migrant workers to work in job conditions different from those promised during recruitment, and victims often do not file complaints due to fear of losing their temporary visas. Foreign workers aboard foreign-flagged fishing vessels in New Zealand waters are vulnerable to forced labor.
Foreign women from Asia and South America are at risk of sex trafficking. Some international students and temporary visa holders are vulnerable to forced labor or prostitution. It is reckoned to have one of the highest membership rates in the world.
