Despite increased global policy attention on human issues over the past decades, human trafficking remains not only widespread but also deeply entrenched in most countries throughout the world (International Organization for Migration [IOM]). In South Asian countries, however, human trafficking is a plague. Whereas this problem can take several forms such as forced labor, servitude, peonage, bondage, and child trading in other parts of the world, in South Asia women and children sex trafficking is the most problematic, entrenched, and the most prevalent (IOM). Several factors have been shown to cause, influence, and sustain child sex trafficking in South Asia. However, IOM observes that poverty and the increased demand for labor in the high octane economies of this region in areas such as the industrial and tourism sectors are the lead driving factors. New findings show that of the 36 million victims transferred globally over the past decade; about two-thirds were from Asia (Curtis and Enos). Today, in the US alone, an estimated 45-50,000 people from South-East Asia are shipped in annually (IOM). The victims, a mix of impoverished, underage, and poverty-struck women and children (Larsen). While trafficking women and children for sexual exploitation is both a high-profit and a low-risk trade in this region, thanks to relaxed preventive measures, its effect on the millions of victims preyed upon, abused, and prostituted in this slave-like global syndicate is detrimental. It has significant health consequences to the affected and causes severe damage to their human rights. Nevertheless, this trade is conducted throughout South Asia with near impunity and is one of the worldwide plagues that promises to worsen unless the necessary and collective preventive actions are undertaken. This paper, therefore, looks at human trafficking in South Asia with particular attention to countries such as Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, and the Maldives, offering a discussion and possible policy considerations on the same.
Works Cited
Curtis, Lisa, and Olivia Enos. "Combating Human Trafficking in Asia Requires U.S. Leadership." The Heritage Foundation. N.p., 26 Feb. 2016. Web. 6 Apr. 2016. <http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2015/02/combating-human-trafficking-in-asia-requires-us-leadership>.
International Organization for Migration (IOM). Combating Trafficking in South-East Asia A Review of Policy and Programme Responses. Geneva: International Organization for Migration (IOM), 2000. Print. 6 Apr. 2016. <http://www.unesco.org/most/migration/ctsea.pdf>.
Larsen, Jacqueline J. The trafficking of children in the Asia–Pacific: Trends & Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice no. 415. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology, 2011. Australian Institute of Criminology. Web. 6 Apr. 2016. <http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/current%20series/tandi/401-420/tandi415.html>.
