Duterte’s drug war and child cybersex trafficking
The ASEAN Post recently published an article on the possible real victims of Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte’s “War on Drugs”.
The ASEAN Post recently published an article on the possible real victims of Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte’s “War on Drugs”.
Over the past few months, agents from the United States (US) Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Australian Federal Police (AFP) have been training Cambodian police to investigate online child sex abuse cases amid concerns that it is becoming more prevalent in the country.
Recently, Cambodia’s National Committee for Counter-Trafficking (NCCT) identified the nation’s capital and three provinces as locations where children are the most vulnerable to attacks from paedophiles entering the country as tourists.
Back in 2015, mass graves of people believed to be Rohingya who were victims of human trafficking were discovered in the jungles north of Wang Kelian in an area called Wang Berma. Wang Kelian is a village in Perlis, a state in northern Malaysia and is located on the Malaysia-Thailand Border. Reports stated that as many as 139 graves and 29 illegal detention camps were discovered during operations carried out by the Malaysian police.
Recently, students from secondary schools and the National University of Laos met in Vientiane to learn about human trafficking and, especially, how to counter trafficking in persons under the rule of international law.
Despite the best efforts of law enforcement agencies and border management officials, organised crime is as rampant as ever in Southeast Asia.Apart from the thriving drug trade – the methamphetamine market alone is now estimated to be worth up to US$61 billion annually – human trafficking, migrant smuggling and the illegal wildlife trade are among the other pressing challenges which continue to plague the region according to a United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report released y
“Traffickers target youths who have bad reputations or low moral character more than youths who don’t understand.” This is what Myanmar’s Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement Director General U Win Naing Tun was quoted as saying recently when talking about human trafficking. Most human trafficking in Myanmar involves the selling of women as brides to China.Naing Tun’s words seem, at least at first glance, to have a tinge of victim-blaming in them.
Between June 2017 and April 2018, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Center for Humanitarian Health carried out a study on almost 400 migrant women from Myanmar between the ages of 15 and 55, who were married to Chinese men and experienced childbearing in the five years they were in China.The study, supported by the Kachin Women’s Association Thailand (KWAT), found that almost 40 percent of them were victims of forced marriages.
A week ago, Malaysians were shocked with news of the gruesome death of 11-year old Cambodian girl Siti Masyitah Ibrahim. The girl had been missing since 30 January, and her body was found a mere three kilometres away from her home. Her hands had been tied behind her back, she had been decapitated, and – perhaps most sinister of all - some of her internal organs had been removed.
Fleeing Rohingya Muslims sold ration books to help pay hundreds of dollars to traffickers in order to flee squalid Myanmar camps by boat, only to be stopped at sea and forced back destitute, the refugees told AFP on Friday.Images of hungry and thirsty refugees huddled on boats have stirred memories of a 2015 crisis, when thousands of fleeing Rohingya were stuck at sea as a trafficking trail south collapsed.Some 120,000 of the stateless Muslim minority have languished in camps in central Rakhi
Between June 2017 and April 2018, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Center for Humanitarian Health carried out a study on almost 400 migrant women from Myanmar between the ages of 15 and 55, who were married to Chinese men and experienced childbearing in the five years they were in China. The study, supported by the Kachin Women’s Association Thailand (KWAT), found that almost 40 percent of them were victims of forced marriages.
Today marks the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. In the Philippines the days between 25 November and 12 December are observed annually as the 18-Day Campaign to End Violence Against Women (VAW). The tradition that emphasises VAW as a human rights violation has been going on since 1991. During this period, issues surrounding VAW take centre stage in the country at the forefront of gender equality in Southeast Asia.