WUNRN
LAOS - FAMILY PRESSURES EXACERBATE
TRAFFICKING - GIRLS
Laos - Returning to the village can be tough - Photo:
Contributor/IRIN
"We have to consider that often someone in the village convinces them to
leave and sometimes it's one member of the family. So the risk is that when
they go back home they end up going back to
According to statistics from the International Organization for Migration, 145
human trafficking survivors were returned to
The country is a source, and to a much lesser extent, a transit and destination
country for women and girls who are subjected to trafficking, specifically
forced prostitution, the US State Department's 2010 Trafficking in Persons Report stated.
Tet* was 14 when she was promised a job in a Thai restaurant. "My friend
said we should go but when we got there they took us to a factory to make
gloves," she said.
For the next two years Tet was forced to work in dire conditions. "If I
failed to reach the day's production quota I would receive no food or drink and
was sometimes beaten."
Unable to escape, it was only until another girl managed to run away that the
authorities were informed.
After 12 months at a transit centre in Thailand, waiting for the judicial
process to be completed, Tet returned to Laos.
Under a 2005 Memorandum of Understanding between the Thai and Lao governments,
trafficking survivors are repatriated and housed in a government-run transit
centre in the Lao capital, Vientiane, for up to seven days before returning to
their communities.
At this point, NGOs such as AFESIP get involved to try to help the most
vulnerable and offer rehabilitation.
"In our shelter we give medical, psychological and legal support to the
girls. They have the possibility to choose some vocational training and we give
some computer skills," said Tornaghi.
AFESIP provides support to families while the girls are in the shelter,
including supplying food and water and contributing to house repairs when
necessary.
"It's to avoid any pressure on the girl, who is expected to be
working," the aid worker said.
Tet spent six months in the AFESIP shelter and learnt to sew. But on her return
to her village in southern Laos, the problems began.
"I fulfilled my dream of opening a small sewing shop but after three months
there were no customers because people bought ready-made clothes."
Xoukiet Panaya, the Laos coordinator of the UN Inter-Agency
Project on Human Trafficking (UNIAP), sees this as a pivotal moment
in the reintegration process.
"After vocational training they might not be able to do what they wanted
to and/or they could not manage their business. Sometimes they go back to
Thailand and are re-victimized," she said.
According to Keomany Soudthichak from the NGO Village Focus
International (VFI), some families rely on income from their
children, which is often more lucrative when trafficked than what they can earn
in their community.
"She goes back home, opens a shop and the money from the business is not
enough for the family. Everything that the family uses has to come from the
money that she makes," she said.
But Tet's problems were not just confined to money. On return to her community
she also faced possible stigmatization. "I met with my friends... they saw
that other people were not talking to me so they thought I wasn't a good
person," she said.
Such social stigma, according to Tornaghi, can also push women back again.
"But it is a result of a lack of knowledge, people just don't have
information about human trafficking and how traumatic it can be for the
victim," she said.
And while NGOs such as AFESIP, Village Focus International and World Vision are
making inroads in creating a conducive reintegration environment for survivors
and their families, the time spent apart can sometimes be too much.
"If they've been trafficked for a long time, of course they change. When
she gets back she's not the same person. That's a hard thing for the family to
accept and for her to accept the family," Soudthichak explained.
*Not her real name