Trafficking in a stain on humanity
Pradit Charoenthaitawee, The Nation, Asia News Network, Bangkok
The United Nations' protocol on the prevention, suppression and punishment of human traffickers defines trafficking as: "The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.
Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practice similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs."
What are the human and social tolls of trafficking?
Victims of human trafficking pay a horrible price. The physical and psychological harm, including disease and stunted growth, often have permanent effects and can ostracize trafficking victims from their families and communities.
Trafficking victims often miss critical opportunities for social, moral and spiritual development. In many cases, the exploitation of trafficking victims is progressive: a child who has been trafficked into one form of labor may end up further abused in another.
In South Asia, particularly Nepal and India, girls who are recruited to work in carpet factories, hotels and restaurants have later been forced into the sex industry in various parts of the world. In the Philippines and Thailand, children who initially migrate or are recruited for the hotel and tourism industry often end up trapped in brothels. A brutal reality of the modern-day slave trade is that its victims are all too often bought and sold many times over.
Victims who are forced into sexual slavery, especially by the Yakuza gangs in Japan, are often subdued with drugs and suffer extreme violence together with emotional damage from premature sexual activity, forced substance abuse and exposure to sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/Aids.
It is hard to believe that in 2004, women, children and men are still bought and sold as chattel every day into Hong Kong, India, Taiwan, Japan, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the United States and some countries in Europe. Tragically, up to four million people worldwide, mainly women and children, are trafficked.
Statistics of this loathsome business are difficult to compile and many believe that the actual number of victims is much higher. In India alone, two million to three million girls and women are believed to be working in the sex industry against their will at any given time and more than 200,000 are believed to be trafficked into, within or through India each year. Some of the victims in India are 10 years old or younger.
Thailand is a source, transit and destination country for people trafficked for sexual exploitation and forced labor. Thailand is a destination for men, women and children from Burma, Laos, Cambodia, China, Uzbekistan and Russia who are trafficked for forced or bonded labor and prostitution.
Thais are trafficked to Australia, South Africa, Japan, Bahrain, Taiwan, Europe and North America for sexual exploitation. Internal trafficking also occurs in Thailand, involving victims from the North. Additionally, regional economic disparities and fighting between the Burmese military and various ethnic groups along the border with Thailand create significant illegal migration into Thailand. The estimated total number so far this year is 1.32 million people.
NGOs (non-governmental organizations), with the support of the Thai government, have begun an information campaign to increase public awareness of trafficking and to provide victims necessary support services, especially shelter and medical care.
I would like to ask the public to think about human trafficking. It is against the will of God and the culture of peace. Let us insist that the government and law enforcement authorities address the official corruption that assists human trafficking at the highest and lowest levels. Human trafficking is a gross violation of human rights. The fight against trafficking strengthens the rule of law and protects the basic human right to be free from slavery and brutal exploitation.
Let us call on our political, civic and spiritual leaders and others to denounce trafficking as the insidious evil that it is - an evil that destroys human dignity and reduces human life to a replaceable commodity. Let us all work together to make this the decade in which we abolish slavery from the face of the earth.
The writer is Thailand's national human rights commissioner.