The Mekong river area is turning out to be the global hotspot of human trafficking. The countries where this is occurring are China, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam. Most of the victims are lured from China’s poorer neighbours with promises of a better living. They are then used as forced labour [to feed the hunger for cheap hands for the booming Chinese economy] and also used in the sex trade.
The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund estimates that roughly 1 million children are bought and sold every year, mostly for sexual exploitation and forced labor. Tens of thousands of local women and children in Vietnam, one member nation of the GMS, have been trafficked abroad, mainly for disadvantaged marriage, child adoption, and labor and sex slavery, over the past decade.
China says it makes a number of arrests every year but these are the proverbial tip of the iceberg.
Realizing the gravity of the situation the countries affected held a two day meeting of Coordinated Mekong Ministerial Initiative Against Trafficking (COMMIT), attended by officials from Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.
Earlier in 2004 police officials from these countries had met to co-ordinate their actions. But it was realized that mere police action would not solve the problem. As Cambodian Minister for Women’s Affairs, Ing Kantha Phavi rightly said that the problem was not only a matter of criminal prosecution but of prevention.
The need of the hour was to go into the causes that lead to the trafficking. The chief reason is poverty. The COMMIT aims to work in the areas where traffickers are most active and help the prospective victims so that they do not fall prey.
An action plan has been adopted for 2008 to 2010, covering prevention; legislation and enforcement; and victim identification, protection and recovery. The governments [especially of China] will have to dole out money to improve the lot of the vulnerable people in the Mekong basin.
All the countries are working closely with United Nations Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking to stop this evil.
Burma used the meet as a pretext to hit out against the sanctions imposed on it saying that because of them Burmese people had become poorer and so trafficking had increased.
USA TODAY/AP
EARTHTIMES
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