A new slave trade

The horror stories come out so often they rarely merit prominent treatment in the news. Filipinos working abroad, most of them women, come home in shock, battered, or even in coffins. The Philippines has become the world's largest migrant nation, according to foreign affairs officials, with 5.5 million Filipinos working abroad. A number of these Filipinos end up in the hands of human traffickers, working in bondage or in the sex trade. Some of the victims are barely in their teens. In many parts of the world, even young children are sold for sex.

In a regional meeting yesterday on human trafficking, it was noted that the "slave trade" of women and children has become a multibillion-dollar enterprise that victimizes at least one million people annually. A visiting US official pointed out that in Southeast Asia alone, nearly 250,000 people are bought and sold like slaves for prices ranging from $6,000 to $10,000 each. The traffickers victimize between 150,000 to 200,000 people in the former Soviet bloc, with the victims sold for $15,000 to $30,000 each. Conservative estimates put the traffickers' annual global take at $6 billion.

Such a lucrative business will be hard to crack, especially when the victims sometimes go willingly into the flesh trade or bonded labor. In Asia, the financial crisis has abetted human trafficking. Even in the Philippines, some women's groups are now advocating the legalization of prostitution, noting that it will give protection to those who willingly sell their bodies for sex. Young workers fake their age and documents so they can work abroad, even if the spurious working papers will leave them open to abuse and exploitation.

In most of the cases, however, the victims are duped into entering the flesh trade or bonded labor. US officials say Japanese and Chinese gangs smuggle Asian children to Miami via Europe. In California, Thai women are forced to toil in the garment trade. And in Chicago, Latvians are sold for sex. The problem has become so serious it requires international cooperation to stop the human traffickers. This is a modern form of slavery that requires global action.