Washington’s allies in the Gulf have been strongly criticised in the US state department’s annual report on human trafficking for their failure to combat modern slavery, but positive developments are seen under new interim governments in Tunisia and Egypt...A focus of this year’s state department survey is the need to integrate private companies into the campaign against child exploitation...US companies have been slow to sign up to international codes of conduct on combating sexual exploitation, particularly the standards set by the Ecpat code for the travel and tourism industry. “We must work with industry leaders so that consumers know that the products or services they buy come from responsible sources,” notes Hillary Clinton, secretary of state. [Carlson, Radisson (part of Carlson), Hilton Group, Delta Airlines]