India, Libya and Myanmar are the world’s most dangerous countries for women exploited by human traffickers and forced to wed, work and sell sex, a poll released yesterday by global experts found.
Nigeria and Russia tied for fourth in the Thomson Reuters Foundation survey of about 550 experts in women’s issues on the worst countries for women when it comes to the trade in humans.
From detention centers in Libya and curses cast by priests in Nigeria, to porous borders in Myanmar, women and girls are increasingly being targeted and trapped by traffickers using a variety of tactics.
Women and girls account for seven in 10 victims of an industry estimated to affect 40 million people worldwide and generate illegal annual profits of US$150 billion for traffickers, says the UN and rights group Walk Free Foundation.
“They are uniquely vulnerable because of their subordinate status economically, socially and culturally,” said Christa Hayden Sharpe from the charity International Justice Mission.
Women and girls in India face the biggest threat from traffickers, because they are still widely considered to be sexual objects and second-class citizens, campaigners said.
About two-thirds of the 15,000 trafficking cases registered by the Indian governement in 2016 involved female victims — nearly half were under 18 — with most sold into sex work or domestic servitude.
“Trafficking is a global issue, but of all the victims I have seen, I have found those from Southeast Asia, mainly India, the most vulnerable,” said Triveni Acharya of the Indian anti-trafficking charity Rescue Foundation.
“Girls continue to be seen as a burden on parents, inferior to boys,” she added, explaining how many rural girls are lured by traffickers who promise jobs or marriages in major cities.
In Libya, which is split between rival governments while ports are mainly controlled by armed groups who smuggle Africans onto boats heading for Europe, many migrants are detained and suffer forced labor, the UN and EU say.
Reports persist of captured migrants being bought and sold in “slave markets,” the UN human rights office said.
“The situation of migrant women and girls traveling through Libya is really dire,” said Hanan Salah, a senior researcher focusing on Libya for Human Rights Watch. “I would say that the majority of them face the risk of ill treatment and abuse.”
Women in Myanmar, in the spotlight after the exodus of 700,000 Rohingya to Bangladesh since insurgent attacks sparked a security crackdown last year, face a different threat from traffickers — being forced into marriages in China.
China is by far the most common destination country for trafficking victims from Myanmar — accounting for two-thirds of the 307 cases investigated by the Burmese government in 2016.
A lack of jobs in Myanmar means that poor girls and women fall prey to traffickers — many of them female — who take them to China under false pretenses as brides for men in a nation with a gender imbalance due to its one-child policy, campaigners say.
Thousands of Nigerian women and girls are lured to Europe each year via Libya, made to perform black magic rituals known as juju, which binds them to their traffickers, before they are forced into sex work in Italy, the UN said.
Yet, the recent order by a traditional ruler in Edo state revoking the voodoo rituals and warning priests who perform them is changing the nature of trafficking in Nigeria, officials say.
“The new dimension is they [the traffickers] are now telling the girls that they will get them jobs as nurses and house help in Dubai ... [with] travel documents ... making it look legal,” said Julie Okah-Donli, head of anti-trafficking agency NAPTIP.
Rounding out the top 10 most dangerous countries for women at the hands of traffickers were the Philippines, Afghanistan, Thailand and Nepal, with Bangladesh and Pakistan tied for 10th.
The poll of 548 people spread across Europe, Africa, the Americas, Southeast Asia, South Asia and the Pacific was conducted online, by telephone and in person from March 26 to May 4.
The military is to begin conscripting civilians next year, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet said yesterday, citing rising tensions with Thailand as the reason for activating a long-dormant mandatory enlistment law. The Cambodian parliament in 2006 approved a law that would require all Cambodians aged 18 to 30 to serve in the military for 18 months, although it has never been enforced. Relations with Thailand have been tense since May, when a long-standing territorial dispute boiled over into cross-border clashes, killing one Cambodian soldier. “This episode of confrontation is a lesson for us and is an opportunity for us to review, assess and
The Russian minister of foreign affairs warned the US, South Korea and Japan against forming a security partnership targeting North Korea as he visited the ally country for talks on further solidifying their booming military and other cooperation. Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov spoke on Saturday in Wonsan City, North Korea, where he met North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un and conveyed greetings from Russian President Vladimir Putin. Kim during the meeting reaffirmed his government’s commitment to “unconditionally support and encourage all measures” taken by Russia in its conflict with Ukraine. Pyongyang and Moscow share identical views on “all strategic issues in
‘FALSE NARRATIVE’: China and the Solomon Islands inked a secretive security pact in 2022, which is believed to be a prelude to building a Chinese base, which Beijing denied The Australian government yesterday said it expects China to spy on major military drills it is conducting with the US and other allies. It also renewed a charge — denounced by Beijing as a “false narrative” — that China wants to establish a military base in the South Pacific. The comments by a government minister came as Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese made a six-day visit to China to bolster recently repaired trade ties. More than 30,000 military personnel from 19 nations are set to join in the annual Talisman Sabre exercises from yesterday across Australia and Papua New Guinea. “The Chinese military have
The US Department of Education on Tuesday said it opened a foreign funding investigation into the University of Michigan (UM) while alleging it found “inaccurate and incomplete disclosures” in a review of the university’s foreign reports, after two Chinese scientists linked to the school were separately charged with smuggling biological materials into the US. As part of the investigation, the department asked the university to share, within 30 days, tax records related to foreign funding, a list of foreign gifts, grants and contracts with any foreign source, and other documents, the department said in a statement and in a letter to
RSS