Furthermore, the lack of awareness makes eradication of the sex trade in Thailand even harder to remove. Thailand has victims and volunteers from its’ neighboring countries that travel to Thailand in order to flee poverty. They can be easily classified as illegal if they seek work and violate their work visas and other supporting documents. The number of victims is constantly growing and according to The United States Department of States, it describes the victims as:
“Foreign migrants, members of ethnic minorities, and stateless persons in Thailand are at the greatest risk of being trafficked, and they experience the withholding of travel documents, migrant registration cards, and work permits, as well as withholding of wages and illegal salary
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The U.S Department of the State also recommends Thailand to have them become aware of victims of vulnerable populations, they insist that Thailand expedite the convictions of the suspected criminals, and that Thailand provide services that would encourage women to seek assistance. This legal assistance could help foreigners be removed from the country without the hardships. This would help other countries recognize the difference between victims of sex work and those that willingly participate in prostitution. It is important to be aware that these victims do not want to be caught and labeled as illegal by Thailand’s law enforcement. There are over 2 million undocumented workers in Thailand and they are exceptionally put at risk to become victims of exploitation in the trafficking industry. Thailand can be more aware and implement strategies to combat hidden trafficking that can include investigating business for signs of sex trade …show more content…
Poverty and lack of awareness programs makes the sex industry profitable to criminals in Thailand. It is important for the Thai government to continue to try to begin outreach programs that educate migrant workers about working conditions in Thailand. This includes education on recruitment processes abroad (TIP Report). These educational sources can include but are not limited to migrant worker handbooks published in Thailand and neighboring countries. Lastly, the Ministry of Labor conducts regular seminars with Thai workers to advise them legal regulations that work with guest worker programs (TIP Report). Thailand continues to be on the Tier 2 Watch List due to its’ inadequate programs to eradicate the sex trade and it is important for them to be more aware and serious about the issue. Thailand would not only shorten the numbers of victims and similar cases, but it would also make it easier for victims to gain assistance. This assistance can deter citizens from becoming victims, can deter victims from wanting to seek risky employment, and can deter criminals from participating as conductors and influencers of the sex
“Human trafficking coerces and persuades their victims to cross national borders in search of new jobs and better opportunities and after that they are forced into some sort of labor bondage” (At Issue: Human Trafficking 1). Even though trafficking is a problem in almost every country; poorer countries have a bigger problem with it because they are more desperate for work. Just in 2000, the U.S. enacted their first federal anti-trafficking law, called the Victims of Trafficking Protection Act (At Issue: Human Trafficking 1). Trafficking has just begun to receive notice on how big of a problem it actually is. “Proponents of strict anti-trafficking initiatives say that laws and prevention against trafficking are necessary in order to stem the growing tide of large scale organized crime that profits off of smuggling and trafficking” (At Issue: Human Trafficking 1).
According to Van Wormer & Bartollas (2014), sex trafficking, “encompasses the organized movement of people, usually women, between countries and within countries for sex work” (p. 289). Sex trafficking is also a very lucrative business, it is estimated to make $31. 6 billion annually. This amount is estimated from the 2.5 million people who a trafficked each year. The exact number of people who are victims of the sex industry cannot be predicted accurately for all over the world. In the United States alone there is about 14,500-17,500 people trafficked each year. Human trafficking it the third biggest organized crime after drug and arms trafficking (Hodge, 2014). Young men make up about 44% of people being trafficked, while women and girls
Sex trafficking accounts for more than 70 percent of all trafficking, or as many as 19 million people (Behnke 30). Which is a lot of people that have had to go through this traumatic experience at any age they were during that time and they don’t have no choice. There are a number of reasons why children and adolescents become prostitutes. In some cases, parents are in such extreme conditions of poverty that they see the sale of the child as the only way of ensuring its survival. (Hobbs). So most of the kids that are being forced into prostitution because they want their families to have a better life and make more money so they feel like it’s their only option. Sex trafficking and prostitution have always been a part of Thailand’s history, however, the Vietnam War contributed to an explosion of the issue between 1955 and 1975. With an influx of anxious, homesick, and bored soldiers into the country, spilling over from Vietnam, the demand for prostitution skyrocketed, resulting in the growth of the human trafficking industry which still remains today.
Between 2007 and 2010 there were around 118 countries and 136 different nationalities that fell victim to traffickers (united nations publications, 2012). If we want to continue successful globalization patterns, we need to crack down on punishment for those who commit these crimes. In his article “A Decade in Review…” Luis CdeBaca states that prevention, protection, and prosecution are the key to stopping this global trend (CdeBaca, 2008). All three need to be implemented together and will not work independently. Preventing trafficking begins with prosecution of criminals. But often, prosecution can’t occur without witness testimony. This makes protection of victims essential in ending human trafficking. This along with more government involvement in labor law enforcement, we can bring justice to more victims. Government can check more into checking labor recruiting companies and potentially making more restrictive visas that allow people to cross borders more easily (CdeBaca,
Country to country, person-to-person, human trafficking is becoming a bigger and bigger issue all across the globe, including right here in the United States. Human trafficking is said to be a form of modern-day slavery, subjecting its victims to commercial sex, debt bondage, and forced labor through force, fraud, or coercion. There are often no easily identifiable victims as they come in all ages, genders, and races. There are said to be at least 2.4 million victims of human trafficking across the globe at any given time, leading to profits of $32 billion for the criminal masterminds behind such trafficking operations, making it the second most lucrative criminal industry behind narcotics. Despite the abundance of victims, it is estimated that fewer than 30% of all countries report at least 10 trafficking convictions a year, and 20% of countries do not even have an offense for trafficking. An additional 20% of countries have an offense for trafficking but still report no convictions of the offense. Without an organized coalition to help prevent such atrocities, it is left up to national governments to come up with solutions for their respective nations, and many governments do not possess the know-how or effort needed to combat these crimes.
Trafficking women and children for both sexual exploitation and labor is the fastest growing sex trade all around the world. The global sex trade is a multi-billion dollar business industry in which women’s bodies become the targets in order for the trade to run successfully. Although sex trafficking is a human rights violation, criminals are still selling women and girls as victims worldwide. The crime occurs when a trafficker uses acts of force, fraud, or other means of coercion to take control over another individual. This is for the purpose of forcing them to engage in commercial sex acts or other labor services. The overall percentage of women and girls being oppressed among trafficking is extremely incredible. “Women and girls make up
Millions of women and child have been trafficked across borders and within countries in recent years, making human-trafficking a global industry that generates an estimated five to seven billion U.S. dollars each year. It is estimated that 300,000 to 450,000 people are trafficked within Asia each year, of which more than half take place in South Asia. Women and children, particularly girls, are trafficked within country boundaries and to other countries beyond South Asia. The growing of human-trafficking problem in South Asia has been recognized and has become a serious concern over the last decades. The reason it has become a main concern is because of the health issues such trafficking is causing is the rise of HIV/ AIDS and other STD,STIs
Sex trafficking is the real immigration problem and is one of the most heinous crimes. There are thousands of innocent women, men, and children trafficked from all areas of the world and being used as they slavery. Many of these victims are being forced, bought as prostitution, involuntary labor, and sold as sex slaves, peonage, and other forms of servitude to settle up debts. Sex traffickers are one of the top destinations in the U.S. According to "Human Trafficking - Exploitation of Illegal Aliens," “It is estimated that 14,500 to 17,500 foreign nationals are trafficked into the United States each year. Trafficking is the recruitment and transportation of persons within or across boundaries by force, fraud, or deception for the purpose of exploiting them economically. Victims are lured with false promises of good jobs and better lives, and then forced to work under brutal and inhuman conditions. Victims of trafficki...
Sex trafficking is a global issue that involves a form of coerced sexual exploitation, which is not limited to prostitution. Victims of sex trafficking are stripped of their basic human rights and forced to live a life of modern slavery. The U.S. State Department (Stop Child Trafficking Now, 2012) has stated that human trafficking is “one of the fastest growing crimes in the world.” It it hard to put a number on how on many people are living inside the sex trafficking industry for many reasons, one being that not all victims come forward. It is estimated by the U.S. State Department (Stop Child Trafficking Now, 2012) that every year “600,00-800,000 people will be trafficked across international borders, 80% being women and children.” This
Sex trafficking involves commercial sexual exploitation, is a gendered phenomenon whose victims are overwhelmingly women, and includes both international and domestic cases, in which there is no border crossing. Non consenting adults and all children forced into sexual activity (commercial or otherwise) deserve the full protection of the law and perpetrators deserve full punishment by the law. According to Linda Smith and Samantha Vardaman, child prostitution is “in cases where children under eighteen years of age are being prostituted, they count as victims of sex trafficking by definition, irrespective of whether they self-identify as victims.” While the U.S. federal government encourages states localities to identify and criminalize sex trafficking victims, the widespread failure of state and local governments to do so results in failure by the United States to comply with its own “minimal requirements for the elimination of human trafficking” articulated in the TIP report. If prostitution was legalized and sex workers had a good relationship with law enforcement. Law enforcements can use sex workers as vital key information sources to uncover sex trafficking rings. Prohibition of prostitution only provide cover to sex traffickers because it gives them the power to use the law to threaten women victims, particularly the younger ones. Women and children, who are forced against their will into
The United States has one of the largest percentages of trafficked humans worldwide, however so many individual are unaware of this issue. As many as 17,500 individuals are thought to be trafficked into the United Stated annually, and some have estimated that 100,000 U.S. citizen children are victims of trafficking within the U.S. (Siskin & Wyler, 2010). Since many cases go unreported, these estimates may be fewer than the actual number of victims in the US. There is substantial evidence that supports the ideology that woman and children from low socio-economic status are most likely targeted (Okech, Morreau, & Benson, 2011), of all the people trafficked each year about 70 percent of women and 50 percent are children that are mainly forced into the sex trade (Human Trafficking Statistics). Among socio-economic problems, the trafficking business feeds on conditions of vulnerability, such as family conflicts, natural disasters, youth, ignorance, gender, social exclusion, political instabil...
According to estimates, more than 700,000 people are trafficked every year for the purposes of sexual exploitation and forced labour. They are transported across borders and sold into modern-day slavery. Over the past decade, trafficking in human beings has reached epidemic proportions. No country is immune. Clawson (2009) discusses how the search for work abroad has been fueled by economic disparity, high unemployment and disruption of traditional livelihoods. It recognizes neither boundaries nor borders. Consequently profits from trafficking feed into the casket of organized crime. Trafficking is fueled by other criminal activities such as document fraud, money laundering and migrant smuggling. Because trafficking cases are expansive in reach, they are among the most important matters. (Clawson 2009)
According to June JH Lee’s research in his work entitled Human Trafficking in East Asia: Current Trends, Data Collection, and Knowledge Gaps, “The end of the cold war, the onset of economic development in China and the growing global market integration of the region, meant that the more developed parts of Asia…started to experience sever labour shortages”(Lee).
The most widely accepted definition for sex tourism is the act of travelling to a foreign country to procure sexual services (Davidson and Taylor 2). Sex tourism takes place in many parts of the world and is undoubtedly the basis for many ongoing trafficking, physical abuses, and child prostitution. By defining sex tourism as “consisting of people from economically developed nations travelling to underdeveloped countries ‘specifically to purchase the sexual services of local women and men’” it correspond better with the modern sex tourism image (Davidson and Taylor 2). Increasingly more tourists have traveled to South East Asian countries for sexual pleasures, making them the typical sex tourists that nourished the multi-billion dollar industry. Just looking at Thailand alone, about 70% of all tourist men who travelled there came specifically for sex (Green 1).
To sum up, there are several effective solutions that these two countries have experienced from trying to solve each problem occurring in their countries, which the Thai government can adapt and use to solve the same problem in Thailand. To prevent the exploitation of prostitution, the Thai government should introduce a stricter penalty of prostitution similar to the law referring to Saudi Arabia. Moreover, in the case of sex trafficking, the solutions from the two countries are both suitable for Thailand. Even though, many countries around the world have been trying many different ways to solve this global problem, the exploitation of prostitution still arises and seems to be out of control for many countries.