The Act defines "severe forms of trafficking in persons" as "sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such acts has not attained 18 years of age; or the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery." For this report, the 186 U.S. embassies worldwide consulted with host governments to compile information about the extent of trafficking in their host countries and efforts undertaken by host governments to address the problem. Countries were included in this report because they had a significant number of victims. Countries were placed in "tier 1" because they fully complied with the Act's minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking. Countries placed in "tier 2" were those that had not yet fully complied with the Act's minimum standards but were making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with those standards; and countries placed in "tier 3" did not fully comply with the minimum standards and were not making significant efforts to do so. Following a listing of the countries in each tier, this report provided brief profiles of the status of and response to severe forms of trafficking in persons in each of the countries listed.