Greater Mekong Subregion

Joint Effort Tackles Trafficking

The countries of the GMS have committed to step up efforts to stem the trafficking of people across borders

By Floyd Whaley, (fwhaley@adb.org)
External Relations Specialist

Cambodian children are sometimes trafficked into neighboring countries to beg or sell flowers

From the street, it looks like a simple house beside a trickling stream. But venture closer and one can see dozens of children playing in the yard, balancing on improvised stilts, and tossing a ball. As they play, other children can be heard reciting the Khmer alphabet.

Not long ago, many of these children were surviving on the streets in a neighboring country, begging for money, and being exploited by syndicates. Today they live in Goutte d’eau Poipet, a shelter on the border between Thailand and Cambodia. More than 100 children, aged 5 to 15, who were rescued from criminals who used them for begging, or who were destined for such a life, are being cared for and educated at the shelter.

“We try to find their parents in Cambodia,” says Kim Bath Wetch, who helps manage the shelter run by the Goutte d’eau Foundation, a Cambodia-based nongovernment organization with offices in Europe. “Some children know where they are from, some do not. Some have just a bit of information about where they are from—like they only know their parents live near a river.”

The foundation staff sometimes spend months tracking down families of Cambodian children who were trafficked to work as beggars. Sometimes the families have moved on and can no longer be found. Sometimes when they are located, the families cannot afford to take their children back.

Top

Widespread Problem Often Misunderstood

“The children at Goutte d’eau Poipet (www.gouttedeau.org) are part of the widespread but often misunderstood problem of human trafficking in the Mekong,” says an official who is working on the issue. And this misunderstanding can hinder law-enforcement efforts.

“The term ‘trafficking’ itself denotes movement rather than exploitation and is one of the reasons this crime—a crime against a person—continues to be confused with smuggling, a crime against the state,” says Phil Robertson, Program Manager of the United Nations Inter-Agency Project (UNIAP) on Human Trafficking in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS). “The key problem with human trafficking is exploitation.”

In the GMS, trafficking occurs amid a high volume of cross-border migration. Cambodian children are trafficked to Thailand to beg or sell flowers, Vietnamese children are trafficked to Cambodia for the sex trade, adults are trafficked from Myanmar, Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR), and Cambodia to labor in debt bondage, and young women are often trafficked as brides.

A growing number of people trying to migrate end up in debt bondage and are forced to work in illegal and hazardous occupations such as the sex trade

Estimates on the extent of migration and trafficking vary widely, but international agencies working on the issue agree that a growing number of men, women, and children who are trying to migrate out of poverty and deprivation end up in debt bondage and are forced to work in illegal and hazardous occupations.

“While migration can lead to improved livelihoods, increasing migration arising out of economic distress, without due preparation and protection of the law, can lead to illegal and often hazardous forms of employment, ending up in trafficking,” says Manoshi Mitra, Asian Development Bank (ADB) Senior Social Development Specialist.

Coinciding with this expansion in trafficking is the increasing international attention on the issue. For instance, all GMS countries now have a range of initiatives to address the complex issues related to trafficking, and Cambodia and Thailand have signed the world’s first memorandum of understanding on trafficking between two nations.

Top

Consistency Needed to Protect Poor, Vulnerable

ADB is working with UNIAP as well as other development partners to deal with the issue of how to consistently protect poor and vulnerable people in the region from illegal trafficking and exploitative work situations.

A technical assistance grant for $700,000 from ADB’s Poverty Reduction Cooperation Fund, financed by the Government of the United Kingdom, is encouraging subregional cooperation among GMS countries for promoting safe migration, and will help address trafficking issues in ADB’s subregional projects.

Over 2 years, the grant covers four GMS countries—Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand, and Viet Nam. It is helping develop pilot programs, a subregional action plan, a resource center, and training program for governments and civil society.

The grant will pilot programs to minimize the risks of migrant trafficking in two ADB-financed projects—the North-South Economic Corridor Project and GMS Mekong Tourism Development Project—and raise country level awareness through advocacy and policy dialogue.

The plan of action being formulated under the grant is already under way. In March 2005, senior officials from Cambodia, People’s Republic of China (PRC), Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand, and Viet Nam held a 3-day meeting in Hanoi under the Coordinated Mekong Ministerial Initiative (COMMIT) Process, and agreed on a subregional plan of action against human trafficking for the next 3 years.

Cambodia and Thailand signed the world’s first memorandum of understanding on addressing cross-border human trafficking

These commitments include collaborating on the investigation and prosecution of traffickers, and on supportive systems of repatriation and assistance to help trafficked victims return home. The plan will be buttressed by the technical expertise and support of UN agencies, international and national nongovernment organizations, and bilateral and multilateral funding agencies.

At the Hanoi meeting, Viet Nam’s Deputy Minister of Public Security, General Nguyen Van Tinh, urged the international community to “join hands with us, to make the world a better future, void of exploitative practices and human rights abuses.”

As Jordan Ryan, United Nations Resident Coordinator and United Nations Development Programme Resident Representative in Viet Nam, says, “Human trafficking is a complex problem that often crosses international borders and that, therefore, requires international cooperation.”

Go back to brochure