The report divides nations into tiers based on their compliance with standards outlined in the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA).
For example, one recent academic paper suggests how the rankings could better incorporate risk factors of trafficking in order to focus more on prevention.
[16] Another critic argues that the Report should better incorporate "international rules that states (including the USA) have collectively developed and freely accepted," rather than focusing on criteria drawn up solely by U.S.
[17] Other critics more fundamentally question its methodology and sources, such as anthropologist Laura Agustín, who writes that the Report "relies on CIA, police and embassy guesstimates of situations that are not understood the same way across all cultures and social classes.
[20] Awards are made for actions taken to protect victims, bring offenders to justice or to raise awareness of modern slavery.