New Zealand government official was scathing about a US Department report claiming that New Zealand has a child trafficking problem, local media reported Sunday.

Foreign Affairs Minister Phil Goff was quoted by national newspaper, the Sunday Star-Times, as saying that "if the United States were to judge itself by the same standards it is applying to New Zealand, it would be found to be wanting."

"Of course we don't have a problem in trafficking in children," Goff noted.

A spokesman said Goff, who was on a visit to Tahiti, would consider the issue further on his return.

The report, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, 2004, published last month, repeats similar statements made by the US State Department in a document issued last year which included New Zealand for the first time "as the result of newly available information indicating a significant number of trafficking victims.

Goff said that the latest report did at least mention some of the strong measures the government had taken, including adopting legislation to criminalize trafficking.

US Ambassador Charles Swindells was overseas and unavailable for comment. Katherine Hadda, political counsellor at the American embassy, said the United States did apply the same standards to itself.

Denise Ritchie, a former director of the New Zealand branch of ECPAT, an anti-child pornography/prostitution and trafficking non-governmental organization, was shocked to hear the assertion that New Zealand had a child trafficking problem being repeated in this latest report.

"The US State Department definition says that any minor by mere fact involved in prostitution is a trafficked person. It's ludicrous," said Ritchie.

Senior police officers in Auckland told the Sunday Star-Times that they had no knowledge of any child trafficking in New Zealand.

The New Zealand psychologist who produced the survey on which the US State Department appears to have based its claims, Miriam Saphira, said her survey had "nothing to do with trafficking."

"I am appalled. I was shocked that someone could make that leap."

While she knew of anecdotal reports of girls being moved between gang areas for sex, there had been no firm evidence.

Source: Xinhua