GLOBAL SEX TRAFFICKING:
PART II – ASIA
By Trevor K. McNeil
Denied
Human trafficking is quite simply the exploitation of a human being. Trafficked people typically have limited access to the basic necessities of food, sleep, hygiene, safety and medical care. Traffickers subject their victims to terrible physical and psychological abuse. Social isolation, being one of the worst. Violence and harsh exploitive treatment often leads to serious health risks including HIV/AIDS. Furthermore serious mental health issues result from such treatment. Anxiety, fear, stress, insecurity and trauma are common. The few studies done on the results of trafficking on its victims show high levels of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in formerly trafficked persons. The Trafficking experience can also lead to cognitive impairment, memory loss, depression, and even suicide.
Another Side Of Human Trafficking
Sex trafficking is an element of the globalized human trafficking trade. The casual observer does not see the harmful consequences of the underground criminal trafficking business. Trafficked children are of course the most vulnerable. Sadly, trafficking whether for labor or sex or a combination of the two will have a detrimental impact on a child’s emotional, physical, and overall psychological development. Human trafficking is slavery. Slavery is at its greatest level in human history.
Human Costs
Human beings are social creatures. Social isolation is a devastating result of trafficking. A sex trafficker’s evil intent is to separate a slave from their family and support system. There is no mechanism for the enslaved to reach out for help. The traffickers send victims to international destinations cutting them off even further from empathetic social contacts due to language, geographic and cultural differences. Rescued sex slaves report facing stigma and isolation both during and after their trafficking experience, most hurtful from family and friends.
By The Numbers
Sex trafficking is horrific no matter who it happens to. There is one group that statistics suggest it happens to more than anyone else. Criminal investigators have identified Asia as the primary source for women and girls trafficked into forced sex world-wide. How many? Up to two-thirds of trafficking victims are Asian in origin. The term Asia includes such geographically and culturally disparate nations as Japan, India, Iran, Kazakstan and the Eastern part of the Russia Federation including Siberia.
Hidden Horror
The absolute worst country on earth in terms of sheer number of females being forced into the sex trafficking industry, either domestically or internationally is India. Despite being a democracy there is little political impetus to reform laws, address age-old practices, or confront corruption. India remains the rape capital of Asia and holds the title as the most dangerous place in the world for women.
Worse Than It Looks
Digging into the data it is easy to see why. India has the world’s largest number of women and girls in sexual slavery at a staggering 14 Million. There are over 100 women and girls raped every day. Yikes! Ninety per cent of sex trafficking occurs inside India. Which is part of the reason it is possible to cover up the crime so effectively. A national embarrassment is one thing, but most cases of sex trafficking border on international incidents because of the players involved.
Root Causes
A major driver for sex trafficking in India is the poverty in the region and poorly enforced laws. A combination of a network of urban slums filled with impoverished victims and an adherence to the traditional, outlawed Hindu caste system leads these young women into the cycle of abuse, slavery and sex trafficking. It is not an accident that most of the women and girls being abused by the sex trafficking system are from the lowest set of castes as well as the much hated minority Muslim population. Muslims are, in a very real way, seen as less than human by the majority Hindu population.
Unenforced Laws
India is the world’s largest democracy. Sadly, human slavery is estimated to be higher in India than any other country in the world. Although there are laws against human trafficking there is no federal legislation against gang activity. Instead gang laws are specific to the individual regions, where there is serious corruption both on the policing and the governmental level. Many officials and individual law enforcement officers are paid off by the syndicates. Some members of the police forces are actually syndicate members. Which is why sex trafficking is such a major problem despite the sixty year old Immoral Trafficking (Prevention) Act, which calls for the death penalty in certain kinds of rape.
Organized Crime
The capital city of India is New Delhi, a known center of poverty, drug-running, illegal arms trading, sex trafficking and the center of India’s massive black market. India has a serious problem with criminal syndicates and organized crime gangs. There seems to be a reckless intentional disregard for the law, by the criminals and government officials. There are more than a dozen identified criminal organizations operating openly in Mumbai (formerly Bombay), India’s largest city. So embedded in Indian culture are organized crime syndicates, they even have a hand in what is, arguably, India’s best known cultural export. Bollywood films. Behind the bright colors and elaborate musical numbers is a shadowy world of violence and corruption. Many of the biggest producers are, at least in part, funded by organized crime. Bollywood casting offices are often used to front sex trafficking operations.
The High Cost of Dreams
Sex traffickers, offer a steady stream of beautiful young women dreaming of fame and a life free of poverty to the sex perverts and Bollywood producers. In India involvement in the entertainment industry is one of the few ways for people locked in the poverty of the lower castes to escape their economic fate. The underworld kingpins understand the desperation of such poverty and use that desperation to fulfill their own sexual needs and supply their many brothels and sex tourism centers.Bollywood is a perfect set up for sex addicts and perverts.
Tragic Endings
Often, traffickers work in networks and keep “spotters” at public transportation hubs where they search out young men and women who are traveling alone, or are from rural areas looking for work in the urban centers. Once in contact with a victim, traffickers often trick them into debt bondage or coerce them into sexual slavery with drugs and physical torture. Each story is different. Some acting hopefuls find moderate success in Bollywood, others are lied to and become sex victims, used and then let go, but, most end up in sex trafficking. These are the lucky ones. There is another fate that can befall some victims caught in the system, should they run afoul of the wrong men. Horrendous stories of young women found burned to death, or their headless bodies disposed of at the garbage dump. Their young lives literally thrown away.
A Lack of Will
Thailand is another sink hole of human rights and gender inequality. Thailand is world-famous for illegal sex exploitation and trafficking. Particularly of young girls. Although outlawed in 1996 sex trafficking is still a major part of the Thai economy, allowing traffickers to run more or less openly with little consequence. When a prosecutor charges a sex trafficker with sex crimes the worst sentence is a monetary fine and 6 years in prison. Thailand has some of the weakest sex trafficking laws in the world.
In Plain Sight
Despite having been illegal for over 20 years, Thailand’s sex trafficking and sex tourism continues unrestrained. Illegal brothels sponsor cab companies who contract to bring tourists from western countries, American’s primarily, to the brothels where they pay to have sex mostly with children. The cab drivers collude with traffickers and brothel owners and carry laminated books with photos of the available girls. Entertainer, iconoclast Henry Rollins referred to the books as “a menu for sex”. Rollins reportedly said to the cabbie, “Wow! I really don’t want to look at 13-year-old naked chicks.” Rollins reaction seems a natural one, however, it is not. The lure of sex with children is a primary tourist magnet to the country.
Pretty Easy Math
Social attitudes in Asia place women at a lower level than men. The strictest interpretations of Buddhist doctrine has women and girls at a much lower status than men. Based on the principle of Karma, it is assumed that those who do well are blessed due to good deeds. Those who are born poor, sick or female, which is put on about the same level, are assumed to be guilty of a horrible wrongdoing. Ninety per cent of people in Thailand are Buddhists. There are 120,000 people are in the Thai sex trafficking system, the majority of them girls between the ages of 11 and 15.
By the Numbers
One place you would not expect there to be sex trafficking would probably be China. What, with their micromanaging, centralized Communist government. Yet it was exactly that government, specifically the 1979 One Child Policy, that laid the groundwork for the current crisis. Rather than being a source for exploited women and girls, China is one of the main recipients of such trafficking. The reason is simple. Nearly 40 years of government driven sex discrimination has led to a massive gender imbalance in the country. There Simply are not enough women in China for Chinese men to marry. So sex slaves and child brides are brought in illegally from other parts of Asia.
Commercialization of humanity
For anti-sex-trafficking strategies to work, governments must be ready to make human rights and promotion of gender equality a centerpiece of their efforts. Women and girls are commercialized in the most inhumane ways as they are routinely trafficked within and across borders, in violation of their human rights. Since “the trafficking of young girls is rooted in gender politics, sexual inequalities, gender-based discrimination, and patriarchal structures there must be a strong commitment to changing prevailing social norms and attitudes”, according to UNODC (United Nations Office On Drugs and Crime) research studies indicate.
Stereotypes
Human communities cannot escape stereotypes. Our perceptions of others is often determined by oversimplified assumptions based on particular traits, such as race, sex, age, religion. Negative stereotypes hinder an individual’s ability to live up to their potential by limiting choices and opportunities. Assumptions that ignore a person’s individual and inherent abilities is inherently prejudicial to the subjects. Ill-informed socially constructed norms, practices and beliefs are frequently the historic basis of bigotry and marginalization within the society. Stereotypical beliefs may seem inflexible, but they can be changed with education. It’s time.
Sources:
https://thediplomat.com/2014/11/sex-trafficking-and-chinas-one-child-policy/
http://www.asiancenturyinstitute.com/society/1120-human-trafficking-and-smuggling-in-asia
https://www.endslaverynow.org/blog/articles/history-of-prostitution-and-sex-trafficking-in-thailand
http://www.legalservicesindia.com/article/1290/Organized-Crime-In-India.html
https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2018/09/human-trafficking-in-southeast-asia-caballero.htm
