Pervasive abuse of sexually trafficked women continues, new report says

imna

Abuse through the sexual trafficking of women is a, “pervasive and arguably growing” problem say a new report released by a women and children’s rights group. The report explores the “push factors” behind sexual trafficking and details abuses faced on the journey by women and children, some who are as young as 10 years.

Yesterday, the Women and Child Rights Project released the report Nowhere Else to Go that takes a “two-pronged approach” to exploring the abuses women and children face through sexual trafficking.

Beginning by analyzing the broad factors behind the root causes of sexual trafficking, the report then turns to the individual abuses women and children face through the process of being trafficked. Data within the report appears to verify the ongoing crisis of sexual trafficking from inside Burma, and concludes that despite international efforts “illegal trafficking through forced migration, especially leading to sex work, perpetuates with unacceptable frequency.”

Jarai Non, Coordinator of WCRP in Bangkok explains, “The report documents how the mismanagement by the Burmese army leadership has caused hardship to the lives of women and children in Burma. Also, it shows how they are forced by economic hardship to leave home to find work anywhere they can, by which they come to risk their lives, livelihood, and dignity.

As the report indicates, the majority of causal factors in how women fall into sexual trafficking, take root in the Burmese military Government’s mismanagement of the economic and educational systems of Burma.

These factors box women into a bleak corner where their only option is to, as the report describes, “migrate or starve.” Precipitating a journey begun to help their families with the promise of “good jobs and [a] higher living standard”, women end up facing a menagerie of abuses from rape, to being forced to sell ones virginity ,to being forced bear to a child.

The report comes at a key time politically, as the media release makes light of the 2010 election that is less then a year away. With this in mind JaraiNon explains, “We have two goals [with this report]. We hope to attract international attention to put pressure on the Burmese government and to inform women and children about their rights.”

As if to emphasize the message the WCRP hopes to promote through its report, today, the Irrawaddy news group published an article on how drastically and uniquely the economic crisis has hit Burmese migrant women.