Meeting to Fight Child Sale to Brothels

Military tensions run high between Thailand and Myanmar (Burma), but trade in drugs and daughters continues across the Mae Sai River. The region is known as the Golden Triangle, and the explosion in the recruitment of young girls into the sex industry has placed it squarely on the agenda of the Second World Congress Against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children that begins this week in Yokohama, Japan.

Every year, hundreds of young girls from Mae Sai -- and thousands who pass through from Myanmar, Laos and southern China -- are sold into prostitution and spirited away to Bangkok where they supply the insatiable appetite of the multi-billion dollar commercial sex industry. Desperate poverty in the region makes it easy pickings for brothel agents, known as "Aunties."

Virginity is highly prized, and fueling the demand for young girls is ignorance about HIV/AIDS transmission and myths about the curative powers of virginity. Some brothel clientele believe sex with children is less risky because they are more likely to be "clean," but as soon as they've had sex, children are physically more prone to bleeding, infection and disease.

There are no reliable statistics on the number of children working in the sex industry worldwide, but the lowest figure cited is 1 million. UNICEF estimates that one-third of sex workers in Southeast Asia are 12 to 17 years old. The impact is devastating. In one village close to Mae Sai, 50 girls have died from AIDS.

"We tend to think of trafficking as involving sophisticated crime networks, but much of it is really a cottage industry involving small-time profiteers," said Phil Marshall, manager of a Bangkok-based UN project on trafficking of women and children. A report to be released this month by the International Labor Organization and the UN Development Program supports this claim. The report says that most girls leaving their villages in Asia do so through informal networks, with the approval of their parents. Despite the risks, there is no shortage of parents willing to sell their children. With prices ranging from $110 to $900 -- almost six years wages for most families -- parental bonds in impoverished households are easily broken.

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