FROM BONDAGE TO FREEDOM 4 Regional Trends Asia and the Pacific An estimated 2,25,000 victims are trafficked from South East Asia annually according to the US Department of States. The growth of sex tourism in this region is one of the main contributing factors for the largescale child prostitution that occurs in many countries. Thailand, Cambodia, and the Philippines are popular travel destinations for “sex tourism”, including pedophiles from Europe, North America, Japan and Australia. Japan is the largest market for Asian women trafficked for sex, where some 1,50,000 non-Japanese women are involved. Half are from Philippines and 40 per cent are from Thailand 6 . There exists a racist hierarchy among the sex industry with the top being occupied by independent and well paid prostitutes who are Japanese or Western women, followed by bonded slaves of whom the best are the white women from Eastern Europe and at the bottom being women from South East Asia. Victims are also trafficked in increasing numbers to newly industrialized countries and regions, including Taiwan, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Thailand. Cross-border trafficking is prevalent in the Mekong region of Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and the Southern Yunan province of China. Vietnamese women are trafficked to China and Cambodia; women and children from Myanmar to Thailand. 6 http://www.uri. edu/artsci/wms/hughes/catw Trafficking Techniques • Local influence / contacts. • Sale by parents, relatives, acquaintances. • Deception of parents / girls through false promises of employment. • Lure of money opportunities. / • Debt Bondage by pimps / procurers after having being lured, where the trafficked is coerced to pay for the exposure in ‘kind’. • Kidnapping / abduction. • Fraudulent documents / passports. • Bribery / other incentives. • Transportation: depending upon the region, by foot, bus, trains, waterways, etc.