Washington ? The government is committed to ending worldwide trafficking in humans, Secretary of State Colin Powell said Wednesday, calling the practice “an appalling assault on the dignity of men, women and children.”

At least 700,000 and possibly as many as 4 million people are bought, sold, transported and held against their will through fraud, coercion and outright kidnapping, Powell said.

He said trafficking left no land untouched, including the United States.

“Approximately 50,000 people are trafficked into the United States every year,” Powell said. “Here and abroad, the victims of trafficking toil under inhuman conditions in brothels, sweatshops, fields and even in private homes.”

Most of the victims are women and children, he said.

Presenting the State Department’s second annual Trafficking in Persons Report, Powell said that starting next year, the United States will penalize countries that make no effort to halt the practice.

Nancy Ely-Raphel, an adviser to Powell, said penalties could include votes against loans from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Since the last report, she said, South Korea, Romania and Israel have significantly strengthened anti-trafficking efforts.

The report, which examined 89 countries, found that 19 are not doing enough to prevent the forced transport of humans across international borders, compared with 23 a year ago.

Five of the noncomplying countries are in the Persian Gulf region: Bahrain, Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The 14 others are Afghanistan, Armenia, Belarus, Bosnia, Cambodia, Greece, Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Myanmar, Russia, Sudan, Tajikistan and Turkey.