Modern Day Slavery: Trafficking of Women and Children
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Burmese American Democratic Alliance (BADA)
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Modern Day Slavery: Trafficking of Women and Children |
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| "It is incomprehensible that trafficking in human beings should be taking place in the 21st century — incomprehensible, but it's true, very true." Secretary of State Colin Powell Read More | The seriousness of trafficking is that it is now the third largest source of profits for international organized crime, behind only drugs and guns," Madeleine K. Albright Read More | |
Modern Form of Slavery: Trafficking of Burmese Women
and Girls into Brothels in Thailand
Asia Watch and the Women's Rights Project, Asia
Watch,
Human Rights Watch Staff (Editor), Sidney Jones (Editor)
/ Paperback / Human Rights Watch / August 1993
(107X) 12/93, 160 pp., ISBN 1-56432-107-X, $15.00/£12.95
Thousands of Burmese women and girls are trafficked into Thai brothels every year where they work under conditions tantamount to slavery. Subject to debt bondage, illegal confinement, various forms of sexual and physical abuse, and exposure to HIV in the brothels, they then face wrongful arrest as illegal immigrants if they try to escape or if the brothels are raided by Thai police. Once arrested, the women and girls may be subjected to further sexual abuse in Thai detention centers. After their deportation to the Thai-Burmese border where they are often lured back into prostitution by brothel agents who play on their fear of arrest on return to Burma. Thai police and border patrol officials are involved in both the trafficking and the brothel operations, but they routinely escape punishment as, for the most part, do brothel agents, owners, pimps and clients. A Modern Form of Slavery, based on in-depth interviews with Burmese trafficking victims, documents the violations of internationally-recognized human rights committed against them. It also presents detailed recommendations to the Thai and Burmese governments and the international community for improving the protection of the women and girls and ensuring the prosecution of their abusers. Order Now
OWED JUSTICE: Thai Women Trafficked into Debt Bondage in Japan
Human Rights Watch
New York · Washington · London · Brussels
Copyright © September 2000 by Human Rights Watch.
All rights reserved.
Printed in the Unted States of America.
ISBN 1-56432-252-1
Library of Congress Card Number: 00-107963
Thousands of Thai women are "trafficked" every year into Japan, where many of them endure slavery-like conditions in the Japanese sex industry, Human Rights Watch said in a this new report. According to the 227-page report, "Owed Justice: Thai Women Trafficked into Debt Bondage in Japan," the women are typically promised lucrative jobs by traffickers in Thailand, but arrive in Japan to find themselves trapped in "debt." To repay these exorbitant sums - usually US$25,000 to US$40,000 - they must work for months, or even years, without pay, under highly coercive and abusive conditions. Japanese officials have publicly expressed their concern for the victims of trafficking. But over the course of a six-year investigation in both Japan and Thailand, Human Rights Watch found that the Japanese government has taken no concrete steps to stamp out the practice. The report notes that both the Japanese and Thai governments are participating in the drafting of a United Nations anti-trafficking protocol that will influence governments' response to trafficking in persons worldwide. The negotiations resume next month, and Human Rights Watch calls on the Japanese and Thai governments, as well as all other participating states, to ensure that the protocol includes strong provisions for the protection of the human rights and physical safety of trafficking victims. Order Now
Profiting from abuse
Author/Publisher: UNICEF
Price: US$7.95
No. of pages: 39
Publication date: 2001
Languages: English (French, Spanish)
ISBN: 92-806-3733-9
The commercial sexual exploitation of children assumes many forms and has many faces. Children are enslaved by a chain of actors, all of whom profit in some way. This report, a tribute to the courage of the many children who have been affected by this inhuman trade, presents the moving words of the children themselves, as well as the passionate and informed opinions of distinguished personalities and authorities. Part of the growing chorus of committed and outspoken people coalescing around this burning subject, they speak of the measures needed to counter it, as well as their commitments to ending it. Read more on UNICEF's efforts to stop the commercial sexual exploitation of children. Order Now
TITLE: Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act 2000: Trafficking
In Persons Report.
AUTHOR: Department of State, July, 2001.
URL: https://www.state.gov/documents/organization/4107.pdf
The United States said Thursday that 23 nations including allies Israel and
South Korea were not doing enough to help 700,000 people a year snared in the
modern day "slavery" of human trafficking. The list, contained in a
new State Department report, groups the two US allies and friends such as Saudi
Arabia and Greece with US adversaries Sudan and Myanmar and other states such as
Bosnia, Pakistan and Russia.
Victims are smuggled across international borders and trapped in brothels, sweatshops, construction sites and in agriculture, and face violence, dangerous workplaces and horrific living conditions, the report said. "The overwhelming number are women and children who have been lured, coerced or abducted by criminals who trade in human misery and treat human beings like chattel," Powell said. Read More
Trading Women: The culmination of five years of field research, TRADING WOMEN is the first film to demonstrate to viewers the relationship of the trade in drugs to the trade of women. The film dispels common beliefs about the sex trade, such as: "The problem is the parents - it's part of their culture to sell their daughters;" "The sex trade exists because of Western sex tours;" and "They sell their girls for TV's." "We take the audience behind the tourist tales and stereotyped news coverage to reveal the reality behind the myths," said David A. Feingold, the noted documentarian who wrote and directed TRADING WOMEN. "We show how much of what the audience thinks they know about the issue is much more complex than they imagined." Directed and written by David A. Feingold; Narrated by Angelina Jolie; Produced by Dean W. Slotar and David A. Feingold Edited by Sam Lee(One Hour VHS) $ 29.99. To order https://www.whyy.org/store/tradingwomen.html or whyy.or
Sacrifice:
Each year thousands of young girls are recruited from rural Burmese villages to work in the sex industry in neighboring Thailand. Held for years in debt bondage in illegal Thai brothels, they suffer extreme abuse by pimps, clients, and the police.
The trafficking of Burmese girls has soared in recent years as a direct result of political repression in Burma. Human rights abuses, war and
ethnic discrimination has displaced hundreds of thousands of families, leaving families with no means of livelihood. An offer of employment in
Thailand is a rare chance for many families to escape extreme poverty.
Sacrifice examines the social, cultural, and economic forces at work in the trafficking of Burmese girls into prostitution in Thailand. It is the story of the valuation and sale of human beings, and the efforts of teenage girls to survive a personal crisis born of economic and political repression.
To order, contact Bruno
Film Library, 22-D Hollywood Ave. Ho-Ho-Kus NJ 07423; 800-343-5540; Fax = 201-652-1973; Rental = $45.00 ;
Purchase = $195.00; If you are a non-profit - ask for non-profit rates.
60 Minutes segment: "R & R in Southeast Asia" (broadcast 10/27/96) In this short (15’) segment, the interviewer confronts an individual who advertises sex tours to Southeast Asia. 60 Minutes sent a reporter to follow-up on what such tours entail, and includes (non-graphic) footage of meetings with a "tour guide," and a very young prostitute and her pimp. It is a clear indictment of the practice of sex-tourism, and the confrontation with the American organizer is quite good—he comes across as nervous, deceitful, and immoral. This videocassette can be ordered from 60 Minutes: Call 1-800-739-7979 (24 Hours, 7 days a week); Priced from $19.95 to $29.95, plus shipping and handling.
A & E Investigative Reports- Child Sex Trade: The only video dealing with trafficking in the United States, Narrated by Bill Kurtis. A & E found that over 600,000 children are bought, sold, and enslaved in sex rings in the U.S. and Canada. This investigative report focuses on how these child prostitution networks operate. To order, contact A & E at 800-423-1212. The video id number is: AAE16135 $19.95 plus shipping and handling.
"Sisters and Daughters Betrayed: The Trafficking of Women and Girls and the Fight to End it, " Produced by Chela Blitt, for the Global Fund for Women This excellent, 30 minute documentary describes many important details about trafficking around the world (Nepal, Philippines, Thailand…) It is an excellent analysis of the problem, it’s effects on individual girls and society, and it is done in a professional and sympathetic manner. There are a lot of valuable names (of organizations) and references mentioned throughout the film, and there is a positive emphasis on the efforts of many organizations to fight trafficking. This tape can be ordered from: The Global Fund for Women, 1375 Sutter Street, Suite 400 San Francisco, CA 94109, USA Phone (415) 202-7640 Fax (415) 202-8604
"The Selling of Innocents," Produced by Malofilm (Canada); Director: William Cobban
A story of child slavery, this documentary takes viewers into Asia's largest red-light districts -to brothels, prisons and police raids.
It infiltrates the world's largest sex-slave operation and gives the closest look ever into the people who are committed to stopping it. The film focuses largely on the Nepal-India pipeline, and shows one scene in which a father actually sells his little girl (for
about $20.00) to a trafficking agent.
To order: If you would like to order this cassette please contact Malofilm Distribution in Toronto @ (416) 480-0453 Ext. 55I; Price: $35.99 ASSOCIATED PRODUCERS, 110 Spadina Avenue, Suite 1001, Toronto, Ontario M5V 2K4; tel: (416)504-6662 fax: (416)504-6667 email:
reunion@interlog.com; Distributed by MALOFILM INTERNATIONAL 2221 Yonge Street, Suite 400, Toronto, Ontario M4S 2B4 tel: (416) 480-0453 fax: (416)480-0501; OR try Or try: Behaviour New Media, 10 Duke, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, H3C 2L7 , Customer Service : (514)
954-7488
"BOUGHT & SOLD" is an investigative documentary about the international trade in women, and includes new material from GSN's two-year undercover investigation into the traffic in women for prostitution out of Russia, including: *undercover footage of meetings with the Russian mafiya; *interviews with women who were trafficked overseas; *perspectives from experts from around the world about how to address the problem. Contact: Global Survival network, P.O. Box 73214, T Street Station, Washington DC 20009, USA, phone: +1 202.387.0028, fax: +1 202.387.2590, email:ingsn@igc.apc.org,Website:
http://www.globalsurvival.org
Expressing the sense of the Congress concerning the trafficking of Burmese women and girls into Thailand for the purposes of forced prostitution.
Whereas credible reports indicate that thousands of Burmese women and girls are being trafficked into Thailand with false promises of good paying jobs in restaurants or factories, and then forced to work in brothels under slavery-like conditions that include sexual and physical violence, debt bondage, exposure to HIV, passport deprivation, and illegal confinement; Read More
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