A Closer Look at the Problem of Human Trafficking

When one starts exploring social issues, one becomes more aware of their complexity.  This was true for me when I started out looking and researching the topic of human trafficking.  The dark side of human trafficking is more complicated than just mere black and white dichotomy.  There are many shades of gray in between.  The public discourse on the topic some time has over dramatized the issue.  Not that it isn’t bad but dramatizing distorts the actual picture and may cause greater harm to victims than not.  So here are some points that I believe need some clarification.  

1. According to the 2005 report by the International Labor Organization, of the 9.5 million in forced labor, only 10% of these were victims of sex trafficking. The overemphasis on sex trafficking can generate its own problems. David Feingold (2005) offers an example:

The focus on the sex industry may galvanize action through moral outrage, but it can also cloud reason. A recent example is the unsubstantiated press reports that tsunami orphans in Indonesia’s Aceh province were being abducted by organized gangs of traffickers. How such gangs could operate in an area bereft of roads and airstrips remains unclear, but that did not stop some U.S. organizations from appealing for funds to send “trained investigators” to track down the criminals. Although the devastation wrought by the tsunami certainly rendered people vulnerable—mostly through economic disruption—investigations by the United Nations have yet to identify a single confirmed case of sex trafficking.

2. Sometimes traffickers just transport recruiters to their destinations and do not know what happen at the final destinations.  Sometimes they do care about the people they smuggle into another country.

3.  Sometime the definition of trafficking itself becomes problematic. 

 The concepts of smuggling and trafficking are often confused.  Particularly for the situation of girls who cross the borders from Burma, Laos, Cambodia and

China into Thailand, it has been said that girls are not trafficked, but they become trafficked.6  Technically in many cases, the girls and women agree to be transported across a border (smuggled) to work as prostitutes, domestic servants and factory workers, but become “trafficked” when there are elements of force, fraud or coercion in the transaction. This includes girls and women who may know that they will be prostitutes in Thailand, but when they arrive, they find themselves in conditions they did not expect. This is the problematic nature of the concept of trafficking, which must be taken into account if anti-trafficking policies made are to be effective.  The problem in the Mekong sub-region, as in many other places,s is that it appears that, in the vast majority of cases, the actual movement across borders, by and large, is “voluntary” in the sense that the person has made the decision to travel for work, within the often limited range of choices available. It is the end outcomes—the nature, the terms and conditions, of work at the destination point, which defines most cases as trafficking.[1]

 4. Then there is the issue of statistics: Under the heading FACTS in LibertadLatina.org:

 Brazil is considered to have the worst child sex trafficking record after Thailand. According to the recently released Protection Project report, various official sources agree that from 250,000 to 500,000 child live as child prostitutes. Other sources in Brazil put the number at up to 2,000,000 children.[i]

 And in Wikipedia, it states, “Thailand and Brazil are considered to have the worst child sex trafficking records.”[ii] If you look at the citation, you will find reference to LibertadLatina.org. Pasuk Pongpaijit, professor of economic in Thailand, pointed out that various studies on prostitution in Thailand cited numbers ranges from 65,000 to 2.8 million prostitutes.[iii] According to 1990 population census in Thailand, 8.3 million women were in the fifteen to twenty-nine age range, which is the most common age range among sex workers.[iv]  Further, prostitution is an urban phenomenon.  If there are really 2.8 million prostitutes, it implies that 24 percent to 34 percent are sex workers or every women in urban areas of Thailand.  Jenny Godley, in 1991, estimated the number of sex workers at 700,000 in this age range or roughly 24 percent of urban women.[v] Sittirai Veerasit and Tim Brown’s ethnographic studies in 1991 estimated the number to be between 150,000 to 200,000, or 1.8 to 2.4 percent of the women in this age range and 6.3 to 8.3 percent of urban women.[vi]  When it comes to child prostitution, approximately 17 percent of prostitutes visit health clinics.  Based on this figure, Phasuk Phongpaichit estimated the number of child prostitution to be at 25,500 to 34,000.[vii]  If the estimation of child prostitution cited by Wikipedia is correct in stating that Thailand has the worst child sex trafficking record (250,000 to 500,000) and factoring in the fact that of the 2.8 million women within the age range of fifteen to twenty-nine live in the urban areas, we are looking at an unrealistically high percentage of children in prostitution.  If we were to hypothesize that one-third of the 2.8 million are below the age of 18, we are looking at one in every two or one in every four children from the age of 15 to 18 in urban areas. 

 Last year while I was interviewing various NGOs and GOs on the issue of human trafficking, the first two things I became aware of were: sex trafficking is only a small part of the problem of human trafficking in Thailand and that no one really wants to talk about numbers. 

 

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[1] Christina Arnold and Andrea M. Bertone, “Addressing the Sex Trade in Thailand:

Some Lessons Learned from NGOs, Part I,” Gender Issues, Winter 2002, 32.

[i] http://www.libertadlatina.org/LA_Brazils_Child_Prostitution_Crisis.htm.  Access Jan 12, 2010.

 [ii] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_trafficking.  Access January 12, 2010.

 [iii] Phasuk Phongpaijit, Sungsidh Piriyarangsan, and Nualnoi Treerat, Guns, Girls, Gambling, and Ganja: Thailand’s Illegal Economy and Public Policy (Chiangmai, Silkworm Book, 1998), 200.

 [iv] Wathinee Boonchalaksi and Philip Guest, Prostitution in Thailand (Bangkok: Institute for Population and Social Research, Mahidol University, 1994), 29-33.

 [v] Jenny Godley, “Prostitution in Thailand,” in NIC: Freezone of Prostitution (Bangkok: Institute for Population and Social Research, Mahidol University, 1994), 148.

[vi] Veerasit Sittirai and Tim Brown, Female Commercial Sex Workers in Thailand: A Preliminary Report (Bangkok: Thai Royal Red Cross, 1991).

[vii] Phongpaijit et al., 200.

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Human Trafficking in Thailand

I’ve just returned from three months of research on human trafficking in Thailand.  I have done 26 interviews with individuals working on the issue of human trafficking from government agencies, to UN, to NGOs in Central and Northern Thailand.  I also had the priviledge of talking to a girl who was a victim of sex trafficking and two wives whose husbands fall into the category of human trafficking as well.  These three months meeting different people have given me hope about humanity.  There is a deep admiration on my part for those I interviewed, the commitment, the passion, the determination, the saccrifice, the amount of energy invested to help and assist and protect.  And for the “victims” I met, they were more than  victims.  They were people determined to make things work even though the odds were against them.  They intend to fight until they can solve their unresolved situation.   This study is not only a study.  It is about people and about humanity and how my life has been influenced by their stories and how I come to regain a sense of hope in the midst of human tragedy.

I’m in the process of writing and alth0ugh this writing project is mainly about organizing information and critically reflect, I still think about the people I have met, and the stories they told, and the lives they’ve touched, and the determination not to give up on people.

The issue of human trafficking, the further you explore, the more complicated it gets.  It is not just about preventing people from migrating, or prosecuting pimps and traffickers, or designing good anti-trafficking laws, or implemeting policies and resolutions.  And all the numbers that have been mentioned in relation to the issue are often not as reliable as we think they ought to be.  The issue lies alot closer to home than we realize or want to acknowledge because it disrupts our comfort zone.  At the very core of human trafficking is exploitation.  And when we explore what actually constitutes exploitation, the line is no longer distinctive.  When we take a very close look at exploitation, it has a life of its own and often there are sociological, cultural and psychological factors that feed into its life.   It stands as a critique of the very existence of our civilization or perhaps our ideal of a civilized society from which we all are a part of.  And traffickers are just one extreme form of factors among many other players in this movement toward our understanding of civilization.

I asked Plew, a police officer in Chaing Mai, how can we best address the core of this issue.  Her answer was profound and simple, “If we all could live a simple life…”

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Children, Sex Trafficking, Simplicity

I have been reflecting on the issue of human trafficking, particularly the stories of children involved in the sex industry in Thailand, for more than a decade.  When I hear their stories, I feel that pain.  The more I explore this issue the more I come to realize that while we need all the policies and projects and funding to really help these young women, there is an area we often over look.  We often fight poverty by looking at monetary increment which is very important and explore job opportunities.  Sometime we fail to realize that poverty is also a concept, an idea, a very powerful idea carefully constructed for the purpose of control and profits.  While I certainly hope that we can plan more programs, provide more funds, write better policies to help ease the pain I certainly hope that we will also address the core value that fuels the ideas behind prosperity and poverty.  I hope that at some level we can also realize that importance of simplicity as key to reframing how we understand the meaning of being poor.  In some way we need to disengage ourselves from paternalistic masculinity that defines  success through capitalistic economy.

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Human Trafficking Reconsidered

According to the Department of Health and Human Services, approximately 600,000 to 800,000 are victims of global human trafficking.  And between 14,500 to 17, 500 are being trafficked into the United States yearly.  There are numerous horror stories we hear regarding human trafficking.  While most people believe in the evil of human trafficking, not all see the issue in a similar manner.  While most believe that trafficking is dehumanizing, some believe that this issue as seen through mass media has been over dramatized and misrepresent its reality.  During the past decade of reading and research on the issue of human trafficking in Thailand in particular I have come to realize that stories of human trafficking is a lot less dramatic.  But less drama does not mean less pain and less dehumanizing factors.  When I first went to Thailand after the peak period of prostitution (around mid 80s to mid 90s) I was hoping to find many horror stories about children in prostitution and children as victims of trafficking.  While there were such stories, they were not the majority.  Over the years I have been keeping up with recent development.  There were just sad non-dramatic stories of girls who loved their families, worked as prostitutes, supported their families and were diagnosed HIV positive.  In September of 2007 I met a friend who has been working in Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai.  Both him and his wife left the States to deal with the issue of human trafficking.  Seven years later they did not see as many victims as they wished and many of the prostitutes they wish to rescue from brothels remained prostitutes.  They both made one of the most profound statement.  Now we have decided to let the prostitutes that we are serving come up with their own agenda and we will try to help them they best we could.

One of the books that I find very informative is edited by Kamala Kempadoo.  The title of the book is Trafficking and Prostitution Reconsidered: New Perspectives on Migration, Sex Work, and Human Rights.   Most of the contributors to this volume has been working in this field for over a decade.  Many were attached to the Global Alliance Against Trafficking of Women.  There are many interesting perspectives that I learned from this book.  Trafficking is not as dramatic.  The statistics is, often, not very accurate.  Rescuing prostitutes from brothels often ends up with other girls being lured into the same brothels.  Most victims of human trafficking are not prostitutes.  The are people who do domestic work, sweat shop, and other forms of labors.  Let me quote one line from the book stating one misconception. “Based on the assumption that most women in prostitution are coerced and trafficked, it is then assumed that they would be only too happy to be rescued and reintegrated with their families, or rehabilitated.”

What they proposed instead is to look at human rights as the basis of how we deal with these victims.  Most people who cross borders are those who struggle with poverty and the lack of economic structure in their locations.  Crossing the border is their way of surviving.  Preventing them from crossing will not end the issue of trafficking.  Making provision in terms of policy for protecting their rights when they work as domestic workers, in sweat shops, etc. are better options.  Hence they promote the concept of safe migration.  Some of these perspectives are valuable as we contemplate how we can deal more effectively with the issue of human trafficking.

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Giving is Not Easy: The Complexity of Compassion

 

When I was around 5, I knew a girl who was treated unjustly by her parents. Her mom would always give the best of everything to the son and not the daughter. At that age I remembered being deeply moved and wanted to do something. I wanted to give my monthly allowance to her until I later learned that even with the injustice going on, her allowance was much better than mine. The need to try to help has always been a part of me. I don’t claim to have done much but just the awareness of the desire to help.

Now that I’m much older I realize that giving is complex. We all believe that it is a good thing but to give is not all that easy. My good friend, Rev. Jeffrey Thomas, often moans the fact that people like to do charity and at times their charity is not really helping. It only complicates the situation. I learned this lesson the hard way. A couple of years ago a Thai boy was trafficked into the US. The local NGO took on the case with passion. I was asked by an officer in the Thai government to keep an eye on the case and offer any assistance to the boy. I did not get to do much until the little boy’s grandparents came to the States to see their grandson. The local NGO viewed the grandparents as a part of the reasons for this victimization. This NGO did not treat the grandparents well at all. The people who work for this NGO are all good people, really good people. I visited the grandparents very often and spent time with them. The grandparents too were good people who do care about their grandson. And I thought to myself, doing good requires much more than just the willingness or the energy or the skills. It requires a philosophy of life that understands the complexity of human nature. A philosophical attitude that moves beyond black and white or a view that divides people into two broad categories…good people and bad people. We are all good and bad. I was among a few who actually talked to the mother of this little boy (the mother who sold his son…depending on how we define ‘sold’) during my trip to Thailand. She might not be the most competent mother but she was not evil. She was a broken person herself. And I learn that charity and compassion cannot rest on a simple dichotomy and rigid categorization. People are complex and this complexity is something we need to reckon with if we were to be more effective in reaching out to others.

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Sex Industry, Charity, and Mind

Three years ago in front of an old dormitory I met Mind and her friends.  Mind came from a very poor family living in a small tribal village in Chiang Rai Province.  She told me that she came to Chiang Rai city because it was her only option for her future and that of her family.  She left her village when she was 15 and with her parents’ blessing, left the village determined to get an education.  She started working in a small restaurant that could hardly covered her food bills, let alone her tuition, uniforms, equipments, and rent.  In a desperate attempt she applied and worked in a cocktail lounge.  But the work was risky and there were men harassing her constantly.  Life was hard but she kept working while at the same time refused to yeild to the pressure. 

Mind is one of the ten tribal students that my wife and I together with Gayle Foster, Natalie, and most recently the Hollywood SDA Church, through the leadership of Pastor Ryan Bell, have been offering montly scholarships for the past three years.  I received a note recently informing me that she has just graduated with a bachelor degree.  She is now earning 10,000 baht per month.  She gave all of her first month salary to her parents and will continue to give half her salary to help support her family.  It feels really good to know that the little effort we do will have a long-term effect for small families in remote areas of Thailand.   

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Power, Sex, and Human Trafficking

 

A friend forwarded this BBC link to me a couple of days ago on the issue of human trafficking in Thailand.   Sexual exploitation is a sad reality.  It is ironical how this wonderful form of human expression can be turned into something very degrading and dehumanizing.  I wonder why?  It seems to me that sex is a symbol of openness and vulnerability.  The gift of a self to others that takes place in a trusting and safe environment.   Hence coersion and sex are an impossible combination.   What one seeks to achieve is being negated within the act itself.  Yet trafficking continues to rank the highest in terms of revenues.   I wonder if this reflects deeply the condition of our souls collectively.   The drive for power even if it means a momentary control of the helpless victims is even a sadder reality.   I wonder if this craving for power is a form of compensation, the life that is out of control, a sense of vulnerability in an unsafe environment, the masculinity seeking to affirms itself from its own emptiness?  Trafficking seems to point to the fact that what we seek to gain is the very thing that destroys us.   Perhaps a lesson to be learned is that power comes from trusting and control emerges from letting go.   While we need to work harder to bring justice to the issue of human trafficking, I believe there is a soul searching process that needs to take place among us and in our community at large.           

BBC on Human Trafficking in Thailand:  

< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/6277176.stm >

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