"By its very nature, it constitutes an acute violation of human rights and
reports today suggest that more people are being trafficked than ever before,"
she said.
The International Labour Organization estimated more than 2 million people were
trafficked worldwide every year, the head of the UN children's agency UNICEF
said.
"No country or region is immune," UNICEF executive director Ann Veneman said.
"Children are forced into prostitution, begging and soliciting, labor on
plantations and in mines, markets, factories and domestic work."
In the Asia-Pacific region, especially in Southeast Asia, the sex trade is a
major factor behind the smuggling of people.
Girls from poor villages in Myanmar, Cambodia, the Philippines and elsewhere
are lured into cities or neighboring countries and end up at massage parlors or
karaoke bars, or are flown as far as Australia, Japan, South Africa and the
United States to be kept as slaves in brothels.
Arbour urged countries in the region to ratify international human rights
agreements to combat trafficking.
In China, the world's most populous country, trafficking of people is a common
practice of gangs that have grown alongside government corruption and
widespread poverty, academics say.
The sale of women and children is a nationwide problem, partly a result of
stringent central rules on family planning that allow couples to have only one
child.
Security was tight on Tuesday outside the Beijing hotel where the symposium is
being held, apparently to prevent any disgruntled petitioners from approaching
Arbour.
China's human rights record is widely criticized, not only for issues related
to trafficking, but also for the government's close grip on the media, harsh
methods for maintaining order and repression of religion.
Chinese State Councillor Tang Jiaxuan met Arbour before the symposium and later
called on Asian countries to improve human rights, while repeating China's
standard line.
"Every country should choose its own way to protect human rights according to
its national situation," Tang told representatives from 37 governments at the
meeting.
"We have no other choice but to make the realization of the right to
development and the promotion of economic, social and cultural rights our most
pressing task," he adding, noting two-thirds of the world's poor lived in the
Asia-Pacific area.
China defends its rights record on grounds that feeding and clothing its 1.3
billion people is a basic human right and more important than political
freedoms.
