Human trafficking: It can happen to you

December 7, 2004

Women and children are the leading victims of trafficking. Often, they are trafficked by someone they know - either a relative, a neighbour or a friend.

A report by the US Department of State, Bureau for International Narcotics, noted that trafficking is increasingly becoming a worldwide problem.

According to estimates by the United Nations Development Fund for Women (Unifem), more than two million girls between the ages of five and 15 are sold, trafficked, or lured into commercial sex, each year.

"You may think 'this cannot happen to me', but it happens to people just like you all over the world every day," said the report by the US government. It urged women to be smart to avoid being victims.

Trafficking involves recruiting or transporting another person to place them in a situation of abuse or exploitation such as forced prostitution, slavery-like practices, battering and extreme cruelty, sweatshop labour, or exploitative domestic servitude.

It involves moving a woman or child from one place to another, promising to give them jobs or offering marriage using coercion, fraud, deception and force.

The main destinations for global trafficking are North America and Japan, Europe and the Middle East, from countries in Southeast Asia.

Most victims are women who answer newspaper adverts for jobs without knowing that criminals are posing as legitimate business people in modelling and travel agencies, employment companies, baby-sitting services and international matchmaking services or mail order bride services.

"Since trafficking is business, it often involves organised crime, and efforts to combat it can involve serious risks," says the yearly report by Unifem.

The report by the US State Department says every situation is different. You may or may not know what you will be doing once you reach your destination.

Marsha, a trafficking survivor, says one woman suggested to her that she could help her get work abroad. The woman told her that she had an acquaintance in Germany who would connect her to the family so she could become a housemaid.

"Upon arrival, she said I owed her 2,000 German deutsche marks and said I would make that money to repay her by providing sexual services to men. I was shocked," she recalls.

Olga, another survivor, recounted how a man told her that she had been sold to him for $10,000 USD. "He told me that I would have to prostitute myself in order to pay back the money," she said.

Comment on this story, click here.

Copyright 1999-2004, Asian Sex Gazette.  All rights reserved.  No content may be reproduced in whole or part without written permission.  Please contact us via the link below for re-print and syndication policies.

US helps Vietnam combat human trafficking
12-3-2004

Southeast Asian countries declare war on human trafficking
11-29-2004