WUNRN
SOUTHEAST ASIA: "LOSS OF
INNOCENCE"
SEX TRAFFICKING OF CHILDREN &
WOMEN
Monday November 2, 2009
By MICHELLE CHAN
IN the stillness of a juvenile court,
Naing, 15, stood motionless with a blank look on her face. She hardly heard the
charges as they were being read out, overcome by numbness as she recounted the
horrifying three months spent in forced prostitution in a country away from her
home in a Myanmar village.
Targeted by human traffickers, some village children easily end up as sex slaves.
The smell of musty bedsheets in poorly-lit
rooms lingered in her mind like slow poison. The constant beatings were not
half as bad as being forced to entertain three to five men every day. Clients
pay 300-700 baht (RM30-RM70) for a 30-minute session, and 1,000 baht (RM100)
for an overnight job. But Naing hardly received any of the ill-gotten gains.
Naing shuddered. She was free, but still
trapped. In the courtroom, all was cold and sterile. As the television screen
buzzed to life, the blurry images slowly formed the close-up side profile of a
man. He was sitting in the dock of a separate courtroom nearby.
Naing felt a surge of emotions. First fear,
then anger, and finally a rush of hatred and despair. The sight of her former
tormentor-cum-sex broker was too much for her. She could hear the distant echo
of a question: “Do you recognise this man?” All she could do was burst into
tears.
Her reaction was damning evidence against
the sex broker (pimp), whose persuasive words and promises of a better job
turned into a terrifying nightmare for the naďve teenager. The pimp was jailed
and Naing has since been repatriated to her village.
Like many ethnic immigrants ensnared by
However, not all victims of sex trafficking
can find an easy escape.
As law enforcement officers tighten the
noose around sex traffickers, sex agents quickly adapt. “Most traffickers know
the confines of the law quite well, and can find a loophole rather quickly,”
said Duean Wongsa, the project manager at Trafcord, northern
Mae Sai, on the Myanmar-north
One of the common ways of avoiding
detection is “catalogue-selling” their services where photo albums of girls in
various poses are sent out as brochures, instead of conducting the conventional
“cattle market” style where the girls are made to parade in front of
prospective clients. Another way is to screen the clients before the girls are
sent over.
“It is also more difficult to find victims
of trafficking, as the sex brokers are extra careful in covering their tracks,”
said Duean. These sex agents could be anybody. Many young girls are trafficked
by people they know – aunts, uncles, friends and relatives, whose stories and
promises of a better life entice them to leave home.
Also, sex agents survive by changing their
base of operations. Once a hotbed of prostitution in
Some of the workers head for the shores of
In 2005, Trafcord co-operated with
Tenaganita for the first time, in a Malaysian case. Ten girls, aged 14-15, were
discovered working in a brothel in Johor Baru, servicing Singaporean clients.
The girls originated from
Regional co-operation is what Trafcord
aspires to achieve, to stamp out trans-border human trafficking. Since 2003,
MOUs have been signed with
But tackling human trafficking is not only
the authorities’ job. It involves the effort of social workers, psychologists,
lawyers, immigration officers and a network of people to bring one case to a
closure. And the road to repatriation and restoration is often laborious and
thankless.
“Human trafficking will not disappear in
the near future because of economic situations, globalisation and the social
fabric of our time,” explained Duean. “Although we try to co-ordinate and push
for the process of law to protect victims of trafficking, it boils down to the
government to take the lead in stamping out trafficking.”
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