Expendable humans

“Sometimes the traffickers know the girls’ families. They can be blackmailed, photographed in compromising situations, they may have told their family they have quite a different job. There is coercion, debt, violence, often they have poor English, no understanding of our legal system, perhaps have developed drink and drugs problems.

“A woman may just roll up to the office, come in, sit there with tears rolling down her cheeks, she's literally in a desperate situation, she listens to her options, disappears and may not come back”.

Poverty the ultimate cause

In March this year Franciscans International opened a new office in Bangkok. The plan is to offer training programs, one of them for those working with people trapped in “contemporary forms of slavery and trafficking” with the major focus on prevention. “We're always going to have inhumanity, greed, injustice … But what is human-made we can do something about, and that is poverty”, said Julie Morgan.

When working in Cambodia Morgan had a group of young sex workers in a health education class. She realised some were no more than 12-years-old, perhaps the oldest 18. “You just knew what it was they were experiencing … sold by their parents because of the grinding poverty in which they live ... For some it's by an older brother or uncle … a 12-year-old girl was then worth about $US300, and if younger the price went up.

“It's a phenomenon deeply rooted in poverty.”

Morgan invited them to ask questions about life in Australia. The oldest said “What will you do to support us if we want to leave this work?”

A Cambodian staff member responded. “The problems in Cambodia are huge so we've got two priorities at the moment. The first is to help you with your health and our second is to help your parents with their vegetable and rice production because then if they're not so poor …” and she stopped. But, explained Morgan, “every single one of those kids from the eldest down nodded because they all knew that if their parents weren't so poor, the kids wouldn't have to be sold.

“People don't want to sell their kids but it's a situation so horrendous. For us in Australia where we can participate meaningfully is in campaigns like the Millennium Development Goals to eradicate extreme forms of poverty. This is where some of the solutions lie.”

Cleary agrees. “A key driver of making women and children susceptible to being trafficked is poverty. Through our networks in Nepal, the Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia … we've been able to see that poverty, and a lack of value being placed on the girl-child, have led young women to be trafficked. So we fundamentally believe that there is a need for the world community to give much greater attention to the Millennium Development Goals”.

Liz Hoban, an Australian academic and community development worker, works in rural Cambodia where she's developing a range of micro social enterprises for income generation, ranging from sewing and embroidery workshops to a flower farm, all designed to counter the lure of job prospects touted by traffickers.

She described a family where the mother died of AIDS, the father was currently ill with the disease and was expected to die within 12 months, so the oldest of five children, aged 17, was the breadwinner, doing daily labour on road construction for $1.50 to $2 a day.

About her future she said someone had already come to the village and asked her to go to Thailand. Someone would organise the day she was to meet the taxi out on the road. Hoban asked what she'd be doing in Thailand, she didn't really know but thought she'd be working in the construction industry just over the border. Asked if she wanted to go she replied “No, because my father is ill and my mother is dead and I am in charge of this family”.

“So it's as innocent as that”, commented Hoban. “This young girl has no education so she's ripe for the picking by the recruiters.”

However, the girl joined a local project learning sewing skills so eventually she can have her own business. The organisation also has a savings scheme. “And she's safe”, said Hoban, “She won't be lost across the Thai border. She'll stay in her village with her family”.

Ms Joy Ngozi Ezeilo of Nigeria, a human rights lawyer and professor at the University of Nigeria assumed her position as United Nations Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in Persons, especially women and children, on August 1, 2008.