Searching through Yahoo news this week, I found a small piece ("Thais Say Suffered in Singapor Jungle Brothel") on the story of Five Thai women who were tricked into becoming prostitutes and victims of the Human trafficking industry and who were fortunately rescued by police. The five women were between the ages of twenty and forty. Similar to most of the typical human trafficking situations, these women were promised a high paying job in a restaurant within a nice hotel in Singapore. Unfortunately when they arrived in Singapore they quickly learned what they were really there for and that they were going to be in trouble. One of the women explained how her pimp told her that she would have to pay him 20,000 baht for expenses if she wanted to be set free or she would have to sleep with 160 men before she would be able to begin to get a sharing of the profit. Another victim shares her story by explaining how horrible her surroundings were and how the pimps would charge men twenty dollars for ten minutes with her.
Prostitution is legal in Singapore, yet it is illegal in Singapore to solicit sex and for a person, other than the actual prostitute, to benefit or profit off of a prostitutes profit. Therefore pimping is illegal. The government claims that it is properly prepared to deal with human trafficking, while some organizations claim that the majority of prostitutes were not forced into prostitution. Those from other countries, who make the choice to prostitute in Singapore, do so under tourist visas, which allow them to stay for one month and earn around two thousand dollars.
The author of the article explains how human trafficking continues to grow partly due to the fact that many countries are turning the backs away from this global problem.
After reading this I figured that it could be possible to come up with a logical solution to this globalized problem. Even though human trafficking can be related to drugs and arm trafficking which in both cases I see as impossible to defeat, maybe with time human trafficking can be eradicated. Since it was written in a previous article that the story of most of the trafficked victims are fairly similar and consistent maybe it would be possible to prevent the story from being told. If the people in these poor countries were educated on the dangers and warning signs of getting involved with trafficking then maybe it could be prevented. Education could come in the form of campaigns or could be spread through word of mouth. This way when those in risk, particularly young women and children, are approached by someone who is giving them false promises they can know to decline.
No comments:
Post a Comment