Human Trafficking in [Laos Street Children in [Laos] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Laos] [other countries] |
Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Laos) [ Country-by-Country
Reports ] The Lao People's Democratic Republic [map], located in SE
Asia, is bordered by China (N), by Vietnam (E), by Cambodia (S), and by Laos is primarily a source country for
women and girls trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation and labor
exploitation as domestics or factory workers in Thailand. Some Lao men,
women, and children migrate to neighboring countries in search of better
economic opportunities but are subjected to conditions of forced or bonded
labor or forced prostitution after arrival. Some Lao men who migrate
willingly to Thailand are subjected to conditions of involuntary servitude in
the Thai fishing and construction industry. To a lesser extent Laos is a
country of transit for Vietnamese, Chinese and Burmese women destined for
Thailand. Laos’ potential as a transit country is on the rise with the
construction of new highways linking the People’s Republic of China, Vietnam,
Thailand, and Cambodia through Laos. Internal trafficking is also a problem
that affects young women and girls who are trafficked for commercial sexual
exploitation in urban areas.
- U.S. State Dept Trafficking in Persons Report, June, 2008 [full country report] |
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CAUTION: The following links have been
culled from the web to illuminate the situation in ***
FEATURED ARTICLE *** Powell
Cites Exploitation In 10 Nations Khan was 11 years old when she was
kidnapped from her home in the hill country of Laos. She was taken to an
embroidery factory in Thailand, and with dozens of other children was made to
work 14 hours a day for food and clothing. They received no wages. ***
ARCHIVES *** Bur of Democracy,
Human Rights & Labor - Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2005 TRAFFICKING
IN PERSONS – The
majority of trafficking victims have been lowland Lao, although small numbers
of highland minority women have also been victimized by traffickers. Minority
groups were particularly vulnerable because they do not have the cultural
familiarity or linguistic proximity to Thai that Lao‑speaking workers
can use to protect themselves from exploitative situations. A much smaller
number of trafficked foreign nationals, especially Burmese and Vietnamese,
transited through the country. Many labor recruiters in the
country were local persons with cross‑border experience and were known
to the trafficking victims. For the most part, they had no connection to
organized crime, commercial sexual exploitation, or the practice of
involuntary servitude, but their services usually ended once their charges
reached Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) - 1997 [10] The Committee is concerned at
the insufficient attention paid by the State party to systematic,
comprehensive and disaggregated qualitative and quantitative data collection
and to the identification of appropriate indicators and mechanisms to
evaluate the progress and the impact of policies and measures adopted for all
areas covered by the Convention, especially the most hidden such as child
abuse or ill-treatment, but also in relation to all groups of children
including minority group children, girl children, children in rural areas,
and children victims of sale, trafficking and prostitution. [27] The Committee is concerned by
the increasing phenomenon of child prostitution and trafficking, which
affects boys as well as girls. It is worried about the insufficiency of
measures to prevent and combat this phenomenon, and the lack of
rehabilitation measures. Laos reports 970
victims of human trafficking Laos has detected 970 victims of
human trafficking, including 835 aged under 18, since 2001, Lao newspaper
Vientiane reported Thursday. Human
trafficking helps spread HIV/AIDS in Asia: UN "Trafficking ... contributes
to the spread of HIV by significantly increasing the vulnerability of
trafficked persons to infection," said Caitlin Wiesen-Antin, HIV/AIDS
regional coordinator, Asia and Pacific, for the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP). "Both human trafficking
and HIV greatly threaten human development and security." Major human trafficking routes run
between Nepal and India and between Thailand and neighbors like Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar. Many of
the victims are young teenage girls who end up in prostitution. "The link between human trafficking and
HIV/AIDS has only been identified fairly recently," Wiesen-Antin told
the International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific. The ins and
outs of leaving Laos Local trafficking networks inside
Laos are still mostly unorganized and informally run. Much of the trade
consists of informal networks, often family members, friends or fellow
villagers who have gone abroad to work before and have maintained
connections. On this level, the arrangement of employment is done
individually, often as a personal business. Once across the border in
Thailand, however, the human-trafficking connections are very structured and
well organized. The family members or friends who
say they can arrange employment are often tied into these networks, even if
they are not formal members themselves. Once they have persuaded a Lao to
seek work abroad, that person, often a young woman or under-age girl, is
literally sold to the network, with the broker receiving a finder's fee. Lao men are sometimes forced to
serve on fishing trawlers, where they work long hours in deplorable
conditions, sometimes not being allowed to return to shore for months. Lao
women frequently find themselves sold to brothel or massage-parlor owners,
who often force them to service numerous customers each day to pay off their
broker fee, which in some instances takes years to repay fully. Mekong
region govts to co-op against human trafficking Since the signing of the historic
COMMIT Memorandum of Understanding in Yangon, Myanmar in October 2004, by
Ministers of the six countries, the Governments have been active in laying
the foundation for a network of cooperation to stop traffickers and prosecute
them, protect victims of trafficking and assist them return safely home, and
launch efforts to prevent others from sharing the same fate. 47 Laotian women rescued from Thai prostitution dens [DOC] Thai police on Wednesday raided
two karaoke bars in a province near Bangkok and rescued 47 women from
neighboring Laos who were forced
to work as prostitutes, police said. The women rescued from the bars in
Chachoengsao province, 30 kilometers (19 miles) east of the capital, included
eight girls under age 18, said police Col. Kraibun Songsuat. He said the
bars' operators had kept the doors to the bars locked to keep the women from
escaping. Freedom
House Country Report - Political Rights: 7 Civil Liberties: 6 Status: Not Free Human Rights Overview by Human
Rights Watch – Defending Human Rights Worldwide U.S. Library of Congress
- Country Study In one example of forced labor, a
14-year-old boy from Laos was sold to an embroidery factory in Thailand,
where he was forced to work long hours for no wages. "If any of the
children acted up, the factory owner would lock them in a small room and dump
industrial chemicals on them," Miller said. Powell
Cites Exploitation In 10 Nations Khan was 11 years old when she was
kidnapped from her home in the hill country of Laos. She was taken to an
embroidery factory in Thailand, and with dozens of other children was made to
work 14 hours a day for food and clothing. They received no wages. CHRISTIANS SENTENCED TO FORCED
LABOR - Christians in
Laos are routinely arrested and placed in forced labor camps to work in rice
fields. Sometimes all Christians in a village are arrested at the same time
and are forced to work in the rice fields for four to five months without
pay. Millions
Suffer in Sex Slavery Statistical estimates indicate
300,000 women have been sold into the sex trade in Western Europe in the last
10 years, and since 1990, 80,000 women and children from Myanmar (formerly
Burma), Cambodia, Laos and China
have been sold into Thailand's sex industry. Crisis-hit
Laos wrestles with child-trafficking problem Trafficking of children from Laos
to Thailand for commercial labor and sexual exploitation is increasing
despite measures being taken to reverse the trend, according to a Lao
government report presented Wednesday at a U.N.-sponsored conference on child
rights in Southeast Asia. Best safety net
for a child is the family In Laos, very often the boys are
approached directly, lured with baits of free drugs, good times, alcohol,
‘chicks’. But for girls there is a different modus operandi – the parents are
approached. They are told, "Somebody is looking for a maid," or
"A big mall is opening up in Bangkok and it needs 500 salesladies."
One of the usual ways of approaching Asian children is through labour,
through promised jobs. New
weapons against child trafficking in Asia In Asia, trafficking in children
both between and within various countries is on the increase. In recent
years, large numbers of children from Cambodia, China, Laos and Myanmar have
been forced to work as prostitutes in Thailand. Both girls and boys from poor
rural areas are lured by professional recruiters and traffickers with
promises of legitimate jobs in Thailand's booming economy. Video
Warns of Human Traffickers' False Promises He said the majority of the young
trafficking victims who saw the video said they had not been aware of the
risks and possible consequences associated with work migration. Khammoune Souphanthong, director of the Lao
Social Welfare Department, welcomed the video, saying it would be a useful
tool in educating Lao children on the dangers of trafficking. Local and Thai
procurers lure Lao boys and girls with false promises of well-paid jobs in
Thailand, he said. Many young Laotians were easy prey because they were
attracted by the chance of becoming "modernised" in the style of
role models seen on Thai television, he said. All material used herein
reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107 for noncommercial,
nonprofit, and educational use |
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Human Trafficking in [Laos Street Children in [Laos] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Laos] [other countries]