FROM BONDAGE TO FREEDOM 6. 19 Political Vulnerability The political and economic backgrounds of the countries often exacerbate the vulnerability of women and children. The combination of the deteriorating economic and political situation in Myanmar spurs an outflow of trafficked women into Thailand. Thai officials eager for cheap labour or personal profit facilitate this flow43. The transition from communism to capitalism in Eastern Europe has increased the trafficking of women into Western Europe. In the past, women were trafficked into Western Europe from Southern countries such as Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ghana, Thailand, Zaire and the Philippines44. Now the trade has turned to Eastern Europe as primary source of women45. The economic political factors also work within a country leading to intracountry trafficking. 7. Armed Conflict Vulnerability and Insurgency In situations of armed conflict, women and children are especially vulnerable to sexual abuse and forced domestic services by armed forces. Also, armed conflicts lead to wide scale displacement and migration. These streams of displaced people provide traffickers easy opportunity to lure, abduct or coerce people for trafficking. This can be seen in the fact that the conflicts in Bosnia and Kosovo provided opportunities for traffickers in the former Yugoslavia and the Balkans. Traffickers had targeted refugee women who fled Kosovo. Armed conflicts also lead to abduction of children for recruitment as soldiers. According to the report of the US State Department on Trafficking in Persons, the LTTE, abduct, and hold children against their will for purposes of forced labour, military conscription and in some cases sexual exploitation46. Such patterns have been seen particularly in African countries such as Kenya, Angola, Sudan and Uganda. Generally, street children are easy targets because their disappearance is not likely to be noticed or reported by anyone47. 43 Human Rights Watch, “Burmese Women and Girls Trafficked to Thailand”, The Human Rights Watch Global Report on Women’s Human Rights, New York, 1995. 44 Galina Vromen, “Dutch Seek to Curb Forced Prostitution of Foreign Women”, Reuters, Feb 16, 1988. 45 Louis Chiang, “Trafficking in Women” in Women and International Human Rights Law, Vol. 1, Kelly D. Askin and Dorean M. Koeing (ed.), Transnational Publishers Inc., New York, 1999, p.321. 46 The Hindustan Times, June 10, 2002. 47 Supra note 26, p.50.