State Department officials faced sharp questions from U.S. lawmakers after allegations surfaced that the government’s annual report on global human trafficking had been adjusted to further the Obama administration’s international agenda particularly regarding Malaysia and Cuba.

Reflecting lawmakers’ concerns, the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee demanded Thursday that the State Department hand over all documents it used to rank countries in the annual human trafficking report.  

Senator Bob Corker, Republican chairman of the committee, issued the order as members fiercely questioned Undersecretary of State for Human Rights Sarah Sewall.

In this year’s “Trafficking in Persons Report,” both Cuba, with which the United States resumed relations this year, and Malaysia, part of a proposed massive free trade pact — the Trans-Pacific Partnership — escaped the harshest judgement.

“Many of us are concerned that the upgrading of Malaysia had more to do with trying to make sure that TPP was entered into successfully, than a care for people being trafficked,” Corker said.

The State Department says Malaysia stepped up investigations and prosecutions of human trafficking, and department officials insist the reporting process is done with diligence and integrity.

“Tier rankings do not assess the severity of a human trafficking problem in a given country,” Sewall said. “The tier rankings assess the government’s efforts in addressing human trafficking problems.

“The secretary of state [John Kerry] is responsible for the ‘Trafficking in Persons Report,’ and there is no one who can question the secretary’s commitment to the anti-trafficking cause,” she added.

Sewall’s testimony seemed not to convince the committee.  Corker said he did not think that “anybody in Malaysia that has loved ones who have been sold into sex slavery would be very comforted” by her explanations.

The committee’s top Democrat, Ben Cardin, suggested the law mandating the trafficking report could be strengthened to include congressional oversight of year-to-year adjustments in country rankings.

Human trafficking subjects vulnerable populations on multiple continents to virtual enslavement, a practice the United States fights by shaming offending nations.  

The U.S. “has a moral imperative to speak out against trafficking. It involves labor servitude. It involves sex trafficking. It involves financing criminal activities,” Cardin said.

Corker noted that “as many as 27 million human beings live in conditions of modern slavery.”

Lawmakers also raised questions about whether politics played a role in the State Department’s upgrade of Cuba after 12 years at the lowest ranking.  The change removed another obstacle between the two former Cold War foes at a time of rapprochement.

Related video by VOA’s Michael Bowman:

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