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Good Intentions Paving the Road to Brothels:

Sex Trafficking, Sex Slavery, and Globalization in Southeast Asia

A thesis submitted to the Miami University Honors Program in partial fulfillment of the Requirements for University Honors with Distinction

By

Rebecca A. Getson

May 2006 Oxford, Ohio

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ABSTRACT

GOOD INTENTIONS PAVING THE ROAD TO BROTHELS: SEX TRAFFICKING, SEX SLAVERY, AND GLOBALIZATION IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

By Rebecca A. Getson

Sex slavery and sex trafficking have been increasing steadily since Southeast Asia was exposed to globalization in the Vietnam War. This thesis endeavors to prove that the evolution and process of globalization has both increased and encouraged this sex industry. This thesis is proven by means of analyzing three particular aspects of globalization as they apply to the region: economic, cultural, and political. Individually, these aspects demonstrate various effects globalization has on sex slavery and sex trafficking within the region. Collectively, these aspects prove sex slavery has both increased and been encouraged by the forces of globalization.

Furthermore, this thesis concludes with the few positive effects of globalization in the region and speculates upon possible solutions to this problem, through globalization.

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Good Intentions Paving the Road to Brothels:

Sex Trafficking, Sex Slavery, and Globalization in Southeast Asia

By Rebecca A. Getson

Approved by:

______, Advisor Dr. Sheila L. Croucher

______, Reader Dr. Mary E. Frederickson

______, Reader Dr. William A. Hazleton

Accepted by:

______, Director, University Honors Program

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Acknowledgments

This project is the culmination of more than a year of work and dedication. I have relied

upon numerous people throughout this time, without them this project would not be a shadow of

what it is. First, and foremost, I need to thank Professor Sheila Croucher, at Miami University.

She was my invaluable advisor throughout the year of reading, studying, thinking, and writing.

From the very beginning of this project, she offered her support, encouragement, and wisdom to

me whenever I needed it. Also at Miami University, Professor Mary Frederickson and Professor

William Hazleton read drafts of this paper, offering intellectual critiques, support, and ideas just

as I needed the advice and assistance. In addition, Jackie Getson offered encouragement and

continued support, without her the initial proposal would never have developed beyond an idea.

Finally, Jennifer Getson provided continued assurances and the reminder that no matter how hard

you work, you cannot work all the time.

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Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Globalization 4

Economic Globalization 11

Vietnam War: Rest and Recreation Services 12

Growing Debt, Traditional Obligation, and Foreign Investment 15

Sex Tourism 19

Lure of Money 22

Cultural Globalization 26

Prostitution = Western Clothing 26

Higher Expectations 30

Political Globalization 31

Voluntary? Coercion? Legal? 33

International Laws 34

Success? 41

Regional Laws 46

Global Governance: “Empty Gestures” 50

Conclusion and Solutions 52

End Notes 56

Appendix 1 60

Appendix 2 61

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Introduction

A young girl stands within the open room of the dirty brothel, waiting to be chosen by her next paying rapist. A faded dress hangs around her spare frame and her shoes scuff on the old scarred floors of the bar-turned-brothel. The young face is framed by dark limp hair, and contains two dark brown eyes that shine out from the grime of a night’s work. She looks young and virginal, she was happy about that on some days.

Looking like a virgin paid more than looking used, like the girls that stand next to her, also waiting to be chosen. Finally, a man leans into her, breathing hot, rancid beer into her face, and smiling crookedly at her. He was old enough to be her father. His eyes look her up and down, seeming to strip away the spare clothing that she wears, before grabbing Lin Lin by the arm and propelling her to her bedroom, located in the back of the brothel. He pays the man at the entrance to the hallway before crowding behind her, pressing himself against her, into her small room. He speaks to her in what she has come to understand is English; at least she is getting paid.

Lin Lin remembered when her father sold her into slavery to pay off his debt. Did he know what she was getting into, what kind of ‘life’ she was leading? He needed the money for his debt, now she had one of her own. The brothel owner knew how much she owed; she couldn’t figure it out herself. She was slowly working to pay it off by prostituting herself to anyone that would pay. The man that bought her would pay about four dollars, one of the most profitable of all the girls; she only received pennies of that, at least she was getting paid. 2

She was glad for the two days she had off every month, two days when the pain

and blood was natural, two days which she was not forced to be raped. Two years after

her father sold her, forcing her to leave her little village and become a part of the brothel,

the policemen came. It was different this time though. This time the policemen did not set aside their badges before raping her, this time the policemen took her away from the

brothel. They performed some tests on her and informed her she had tested positive for

Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), the brothel owner probably wouldn’t want her

anymore, not with this disease. She remembered, somehow, that she was fifteen years

old, she wouldn’t get paid now.i

As much as the mind wants to rebel against this story, hoping every word is false, hoping people could not do this to children, hoping policemen would not rape. Lin Lin is a real fifteen year old girl sold for two years to foreigners, locals, and policemen, provided they paid the price or offered some other form of compensation. This history, however, has one difference from the majority of narrations originating from Southeast

Asian brothels, most girls are not rescued, and, if they are, they are rarely as young. Lin

Lin was lucky.

Lin Lin’s story is common throughout the region of Southeast Asia. Here, sex trafficking, sex slavery, and globalization work hand in hand to create thousands of stories like the one of this little fifteen year old. For women, trafficking most often leads to becoming prostitutes or sex slaves. Although trafficking is a problem around the world, Southeast Asia provides the best paradigm of the combination of sex trafficking, sex slavery, and globalization working in tandem with each other. In Southeast Asia’s 3

market, women and children are sold to tourists, business people, and the local populace

to turn a profit for the globalized owners of the brothels and the country’s economy. The

globalization of Southeast Asia, which truly began after the United States involvement in

World War II and the Vietnam War, superficially offered aid and solutions in the form of laws and regulations to the young victims of Southeast Asia’s market. These superficial laws and regulations diverted attention away from the problem because the international community appeared to be assisting these victims while never acting upon the laws. The increasingly globalized world has contributed to and increased the trafficking of sex slaves. The path to brothels may have been dirt roads with unclear boundaries before globalization became a primary aspect in sex slavery, but now the road to a sex slave has been paved by globalization, with economic integration and ineffectual, if well-intended, acts of political cooperation.

To understand how the dirt road has become smoothed by globalization many issues, histories, and actors must be explained. To begin, globalization has numerous complex aspects that have affected Southeast Asia both positively and adversely. Many aspects of globalization appeared in the region after the beginnings of sex slavery, after the United States contracted with the region during the Vietnam War. Sex slavery’s regional history is defined by this first real integration into the world system and the realization that the world would pay to use the region’s “greatest assets.”

The Vietnam War prostitution slowly evolved from patriotic forced prostitution into the modern sex tourism and conditions of the modern era. What was happening in this section of the world was not unseen by the international community, and the 4

international community, regional powers, and national governments all created laws that

appeared to address human rights while rarely enforcing these laws. Globalization has

connected the world in previously unseen ways; this both helps and hinders the fight to

control slavery and trafficking in Southeast Asia. Although globalization is, more than likely, part of the cure to this endemic problem in Southeast Asia, the history and modern regulations undeniably demonstrate that globalization both increases and encourages sex slavery and sex trafficking within Southeast Asia.

Globalization

Globalization is a complicated issue that must be defined in both a general sense

and as it applies to the context of Southeast Asia. Globalization originated from

capitalism, or rather the expansion of capitalism around the world.ii As capitalism spread around the world, it became increasingly necessary to develop means of communication and exchange, therefore increasing connections. Globalization has evolved into the interconnection of the world and world affairs. Due to the origins of globalization, the strongest area of connection is the economic realm of trade, financial markets, investments, and currency, and the political realm of agencies and international regulations.iii According to some authors, globalization is aimed at “universalizing global

capitalism and neo-liberal principles.”iv However, globalization can also be seen as the

“compression of the world.”v In other words, globalization connects the states, regions,

and people of the world through political and non-political channels, including, but not limited to, economic, cultural, and political. 5

Therefore, economic vulnerability, sudden economic shocks, foreign exchange

markets, trade integration, foreign investment, international debt, cultural exchange,

personnel exchange, and technological exchange are some of the possible effects on a

state in a globalized international system. These investments and the flow of capital are

not equal between these countries and will often create a hierarchy of foreign exchange

and capital investment.vi This globalization of the economy has created a global market

in which goods, information, and people are exchanged across borders. Some people can

move for their own benefit and of their own volition, while others are forced to move for

the benefit of others. Technology is often another exchanged item between nations, whether in the form of tangible objects or information. However, globalization does not simply affect economies but also societies and nations as a whole, through cultural and political influences.

Globalization has the ability to affect societies both positively and negatively, just as it does the economic realm. The capitalistic aspect of globalization accentuates and emphasizes the importance of materialism, going so far as to commodify human beings, such as women and girls transformed into sex slaves. This commodification of humans easily “dehumanizes individuals and communities,”vii making these people and places simply objects to be bartered. It accentuates poverty by offering corporations the opportunity to access the destitute people of third world countries, leaving workers

without jobs in first world countries and offering little compensation for the many hours

of work in third world countries. Also, it contributes to various forms of slavery such as

bonded labor, forced marriage, forced labor, trafficking, and sex slavery. However, 6

globalization can also contribute to the awareness of certain issues around the world; it

can affect the international community by calling attention to previously un-addressed

issues, forcing the international realm to acknowledge the situation.viii Unfortunately, for the trafficked victims and the sex slaves of Southeast Asia, the negative influences of globalization far outweigh the positive acknowledgment of slavery as an issue.

The question, then, becomes: why would countries allow globalization to occur

within their country if it has all of the negative aspects attributed to it, and it is not an

equal exchange of markets, society, or ideas. Globalization provides a basic means for a

country to grow both economically and socially. Fundamentally, globalization provides

opportunity.ix Opportunity to learn from other nations and countries about economic information and social regulations, opportunity to gain access to foreign currency and foreign ideas, opportunity to interact with people around the world and participate in an exchange of ideas, people, and culture with the potential of gaining something beneficial from this exchange.

As globalization spread, a global market was created which increased connections, thanks in large part to the desire of a more global economic market; a

“global civil society”x began to form. This global civil society consists of the citizens of

states and national and international non-governmental organizations and bodies.

Coinciding with this global civil society, international governmental organizations and

bodies began to form, connecting national governments. This global cohesion is in response to an increase in the interconnection and interdependence of the entire world, and is responsible for the creation of international bodies, such as the United Nations 7

(UN) or Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). Questions arise from this global

civil society that greatly effect the situation in Southeast Asia: are developed countries

required to give aid to underdeveloped countries, which countries are underdeveloped

enough to receive aid, which countries are developed enough to give aid, are there ethical or moral obligations to assist the people of other nations whether economically or

socially?xi If countries should help other countries, what should they help them with and

whose version of morality or ethics should accompany this assistance? “Poverty

reduction, development, peace, environmental protection, and human rights” are all

contested within the realm of the international society.xii There are no set answers for what the ‘right’ course of action is or who has the ‘right’ group of morals.

Among the global civil society and states within globalization, Southeast Asia has become an important facet of the world, being both positively and adversely affected by most aspects of globalization. Southeast Asia, in terms of this document, consists of

Brunei, Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. In other words, those countries surrounded by China, the Indian Ocean, and the Pacific Ocean. Thailand is the geographically central country within the region and the most scrutinized, offering more examples and data than the other countries.

Thailand’s centrality does not diminish the importance of other countries in the region and is offered simply as an example for the entire region.

Economically, globalization has greatly aided Southeast Asia. For example, from

1986 to 1996 the entire region received global encouragement to industrialize.xiii Due to

the increase in industrialization over the past several decades this region has been greatly 8

developed. Furthermore, there was an economic currency crisis in 1997 which they were

able to survive based upon the connection to the global economic system.xiv

Globalization has helped this region of the world in many ways but, as one scholar writes

about Thailand: “Joining the world economy has done wonders for Thailand’s income

and terrible things to its society.”xv Sex slavery and sex trafficking within this region are only two of the terrible things done to Thailand’s society, while increasing its economy.

Each country within the region affiliates with a different culture, while managing to maintain similar societal norms. Despite these differences, the society of Southeast

Asia is a varied combination of other societies combined to form the unique culture and society of the region. Indian, Islamic, Chinese, Japanese, and Western culture all play a role in the region’s cultural identity. Vietnam and Singapore associate with Chinese;

Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, and Burma with Indian; Malaysia and Indonesia with Islamic;

Singapore and Philippines with Western.xvi Even as these distinct varieties of culture

create one unique region, differences remain between the states creating a tentative

connection between these regional states.

Southeast Asia is also affected governmentally by globalization. Sovereignty

within the region is often “flexible.” This region tends to participate in “graduated sovereignty” in which a “state maintains control over its territory, it is also willing, in some cases, to let corporate entities set the terms for constituting and regulating some domains.”xvii This entire idea of giving up partial sovereignty is contrary to the very idea

of sovereignty exemplifies the dilemma of less developed nations of the globalized world. In Southeast Asia, the sovereign states are not ceding their rights to another 9

nation but rather to an economic corporate entity. This example also illustrates how willing some sovereign nations are to give up rights to their own territory in order to gain

economic benefit. This same belief, in the economy preceding all other sectors of

society, is displayed in the sex slavery that is encouraged by the state for its global

clientele.

Another factor to consider for this region has been dubbed the “push-down pop-

up” effect. This refers to what occurs within the region when a regulation is enacted to

curb a problem. If a problem is corrected or reduced, “pushed down,” in one regional

state then the same problem will simply reemerge, or “pop-up,” in another regional state.

For example, Thailand has been attempting to suppress sex slavery in one local village; it

dissipates from this area and simply moves across the nearby boarder into Laos.xviii This

effect makes national laws and regulations difficult to enforce and regional laws

necessary. However, because of the differences in the countries, this regional necessity is

often difficult to come by, even if the global community attempted to enforce the new laws and regulations.

Globalization greatly affects the local, national, and regional affairs, while

creating the international context in which many of globalization’s causes and effects

must be handled. Political, economic, and societal effects are the most prevalent

throughout Southeast Asia. Sex slavery is one of the most important and widespread

effects of globalization throughout the region. There is a capitalistic demand for sex

slaveryxix and Southeast Asia is willing to supply the slaves for the market. 10

As shown, globalization has many aspects which affect sex slavery. Jan Aart

Scholte recognizes four different areas effected by globalization: “productions,”

“governance,” “community,” and “knowledge.”xx Productions refer to the economic aspects of globalization, particularly capitalism. Governance refers to the political dynamics and effects of globalization, in the context of states and international

bureaucracy. Community is the aspect of globalization which handles the cultural

changes and influences, those aspects dealing with the traditions, expectations, and

desires of a people of one culture or another. Finally, knowledge refers to the spread of

rationality, science, and technology.

The following analysis utilizes these aforementioned areas of globalization to

demonstrate how the evolution of the existing problem of sex slavery is related to globalization. The analysis of sex slavery will be segmented into three overarching sections based upon Scholte’s categories: economic, cultural, and political. Each

category will undeniably demonstrate that each of these dimensions of globalization

increase sex slavery within the Southeast Asian region. The Vietnam War, growing debt,

traditional obligation, foreign investment, sex tourism, and the importance of foreign currency within region to prove the connection between the increase in sex slavery and the economy of the region and the world. Cultural globalization distinguishes between the two cultural aspects utilized to increase sex slavery: local culture and the influence of outside standards. Finally, political globalization analyzes those aspects of international and regional laws which directly affect sex slavery and trafficking worldwide and regionally, evaluating possible successes and the results of global governance. Scholte’s 11

knowledge category will be included throughout the other sections as relevant. Similar or identical examples will be used throughout the text in different contexts in order to argue different aspects of globalization. This repetition of examples demonstrates how one specific example is affected by all aspects of globalization. The combination of these three sections of globalization proves that globalization, in all respects, increases and encourages the preexisting sex slavery within Southeast Asia.

Despite the proof provided by these three sections, two details must be acknowledged: globalization has made some progress in this area and globalization may be the only means which can discourage this problem. Possible solutions will be presented in conjunction with an explanation of why the very process that encourages sex slavery is the one process that could discourage it. Before these solutions are proffered, the following sections will demonstrate the evolution of globalization in Southeast Asia through economic, cultural, and political aspects.

Economic Globalization

In the modern world, prostitution is vernacularly referred to as the “world’s oldest profession.” It is commonly thought to have been around since the first community or society formed thousands of years ago. Prostitution has changed definitions and meanings throughout the years and across the world, depending upon societal norms and contemporary laws and regulations. However, the sex slavery seen in modern-day

Southeast Asia was begun in the mid 1950s, due, primarily, to the Vietnam War.

Not only was modern sex slavery born in the region but the region itself was created due to the various years of wars fought in the region. In fact, this region was not 12

thought of as Southeast Asia until after World War II. The only unifying factor in this

region, besides proximity, was a common ruler during the Japanese colonialism of World

War II. This region was then treated the same by the allies after World War II, responding to the regional security and politics. The term “Southeast Asia” was not utilized until after the allies used it to refer to the Southeast Asian Command in the late years of World War II.xxi This, essentially, created the notion of a region of Southeast

Asia, despite a lack of regional cohesiveness between the states that composed the

region.xxii After World War II, the region was allowed to develop industrialization and

urbanization, increasing the average wages and allowing local men to utilize the local

brothels.xxiii However, this local prostitution and enslavement was nothing compared to what was to come in the Vietnam War.

Vietnam War: Rest and Recreation Services

Brothels and prostitution existed before the War, and were utilized by locals; but throughout the War, the United States and Southeast Asia established Rest-and-

Recreation (R&R) locations for American soldiers throughout most of Southeast Asia, especially in Thailand. In 1967, “Thailand contracted with the United States government to provide ‘Rest and Recreation’ services to the troops during the Vietnam War.”xxiv The government of Thailand was willing to sacrifice its women and girls to American troops, and the United States government contracted for the lives of these women and girls. It is important to acknowledge that Rest and Recreation services were not entirely destinations of sex slaves; most locations were legitimate without any maltreatment or 13

illegal activity. Nonetheless, many Rest and Recreation services did cater to sex slavery

and trafficking of girls into the country for this purpose.

Ironically, the same year that Thailand contracted with the United States

government to provide Rest and Recreation services to American troops Southeast Asia formed the Association of Southeast Asian Nation (ASEAN). This association was founded by Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, and the Philippines, with the other countries hoping for admittance. This was an attempt by the region to have some form of united front against the encroaching globalization. There was a regional realization that general regional threats existed and needed to be handled jointly, along with the economic benefits to be gained by joining and gaining the political power that accompanied a multiple state coalition. The unifying factor for these states was, unsurprisingly, economic benefits and the free market. Politically, these countries differed greatly: Thailand, Singapore, and the Philippines believed the Unites States were right in their actions in the Vietnam War, while Indonesia and Malaysia believed the

United States should never have intervened. The only overall, agreed upon, goal of

ASEAN was to maintain globalization in the economic sphere and expand globalization for further access to economic benefits.xxv

Southeast Asia needed the economic benefits and money that could be brought by

the Western nations, all the states agreed upon the necessity of these economic benefits.

Therefore, the region supported contract with the United States due to the need for

foreign currency in the vastly expanding and globalizing world.xxvi The globalizing

context of the Vietnam War era was both the cause and effect of the R&R services, 14

creating a cycle that the region could not escape. Globalization allowed the United States to participate in the regional affairs due to the Vietnam War. Due to the increased communications and economic connections between the United States and the region, the

United States had a vested interest in the region that was absent in previous eras. The

United States’ ties to the region seemed to create an obligation to intercede in regional affairs; globalization also provided the ability to do so. Globalization provided the opportunity, reasons, resources, and means to travel to another part of the world to participate.

Rest and Recreation services were heavily utilized by the American troops which visited the region and participated in the hostilities. According to statistics, “. . . there were about 400,000 prostitutes at the height of the war – almost one for every GI.”xxvii

This vast number of prostitutes indicates the use of the Rest and Recreation services

offered to the troops and the willingness of the region to provide them, one way or

another. Both the international troops and the regional governments allowed these

services to be offered and utilized throughout the years.

After the war, the world was compressing with more people and more technology

bridging the physical gap separating people. This compression was during the heart of

the Cold War when alliances between countries were being formed and, more

importantly, economies of different countries were being intertwined as people began to

demand better technology and economy. This interdependence of countries and

economies is essential to globalization, but also the reason given for forcibly prostituting 15

the women of Southeast Asia. The economy of the country, as the Vietnamese government explicitly stated, was more important than their female citizens.xxviii

The Vietnam War had irrevocable impacts upon the region as demonstrated by the economic growth and rapid industrialization from the time of the American withdrawal.

This economic growth and industrialization affected nearly all parts of Southeast Asia except for the very poor in the mountains, especially the mountain lands between Burma and Thailand. As beneficial as the industrialization and growth were to the economy of the states, it wrecked havoc upon women in poor families.xxix

Unfortunately, the end of the war and the economic growth and industrialization did not result in the end of forced prostitution. The need for foreign currency was too strong and the debt from the War years was weighing upon the states. Instead of

assisting the survivors and victims of sex slavery, a new industry was born: sex tourism.

After the presumably innocent recommendation of the World Bank, sex tourism became a precious commodity.

Growing Debt, Traditional Obligation, and Foreign Investment

Before sex tourism and the World Bank’s role can be addressed, one must ask: why did the Southeast Asian governments not help their women and children who were being exploited and enslaved? This question was answered simply by a South

Vietnamese government official in the 1980’s, “The Americans need girls; we need dollars. Why should we refrain from the exchange? It’s an inexhaustible source of U.S. dollars for the State [of Vietnam].”xxx Southeast Asian economies required the money

from the sale of their women and children due to the increased demands of the global 16

economy. The region used the means they had available to attain the economic results they needed. The growing debt faced by the regional states could only be met with a growing economy and vast intake of money to pay off this debt and meet the increasing demands of their emergent economy and expanding industrialization. The region relied upon old norms, but changed them to fit their contemporary needs. Southeast Asia employed the tradition experienced by all women of the region: obligation.

Debt and obligation are not new phenomena in Southeast Asia; they have been inculcated into the regional society for many years. This region has a history of arranged marriages, bride-prices or bride-service, and bondage; these traditional customs combine both debt and obligation into one seamless unit. Not only have women been seen as a means to alleviate debt but also have been forced to see this bartering of themselves as demanding an obligation on her part to fulfill whatever role she has been bartered into.

Furthermore, “Bondage was always preferable to starvation or beggary.”xxxi

Bondage is a type of service much like an indentured servant and easily transformed from bonded labor into slavery. Bondage was seen as one of the better alternatives for a person and even better for women: “. . . the opportunities for upward mobility and an easier life had long been greater for bonded women than men . . .”xxxii Women were

pushed with relative ease into the life of bonded labor, in whatever forms that took, due

to the emphasis on the woman’s obligation to fulfill her role in the arrangement. In other

words, there was a historical and cultural context for the transition from women in

bonded labor into sex slavery in that particular region. 17

Nevertheless, sex slavery and sex trafficking of the contemporary era is very different from the war prostitution and the traditional bonded labor that had been occurring within the region. Trafficking and sex slavery are commonly combined in the international realm, due to their close connection in the region. According to one report, a quarter of the world’s trafficked persons are from within the Southeast Asian region and trafficking has been identified as the third largest economic section after guns and drugs.xxxiii The following aspects are common to both sex slavery and trafficking:

1. Deception (usually about the nature of work, coercion in recruitment); 2. Force, coercion, and/or the threat of violence during transportation process; 3. Force, coercion, and violence or threat of violence at destination, e.g., worksites; 4. Deprivation of freedom (of movement and personal choice); 5. Abuse of authority/dominant position – e.g., a mother may use her position to get her daughter to work in prostitution. She may or may not know what it involves. It may also be government officials, teacher, village head, etc.; 6. Debt bondage – a situation where a woman is told that she in now indebted to the person who facilitated her travel and that she must pay back the debt by working. Equally, a situation where the deduction of the debt was not done in a reasonable manner (possibly in order to ensure that the woman remained in debt for as long as possible).xxxiv

All of the described aspects occur throughout sex slavery, sex tourism, and sex trafficking throughout the Southeast Asian region. Each aspect is crucial to breaking the spirit of the new slave and forcing her to operate in the work assigned to her, sex in the case of young girls. For most girls being trafficked, each step normally involves being raped, or at least sexually assaulted, multiple times.

Due to the nature of trafficking, brothels are filled with women from regional countries. Each country within the region has a certain place within this slavery network, and labeled as either a ‘receiver’ or a ‘sender.’ Philippines and Thailand are the major 18

primary receivers while Vietnam, Indonesia, and Burma are the major primary senders.

Within the Philippines, sex tourism has become the third largest source of income in the

country; in the 1970s, it was the largest source of foreign income. Globalization extends

beyond the global clientele in the Philippines and into ownership. Many Philippine

brothels are owned and operated by Japanese, Australian, or German proprietors.

Thailand trafficks primarily from Burma due to several factors: belief that Burmese

women are free of AIDS; the only usable passage between these two countries is a road

passable only by a three day motorcycle ride or a twenty day walk on foot; and Thai

pirates can easily hijack Burmese ships, steal the women, and force them into the

brothels.xxxv

The Philippines is not the only country that attracts foreign investors. In 1991,

Thailand had a three billion dollar profit from their sex tourism alone, with almost sixty percent being channeled to European investors.xxxvi An industry designed to draw foreign

currency and foreign customers in order to advance its own economy has been betrayed

again by globalization, the very tools utilized to create the sex tourism industry made the

globalized investors possible, taking away the valuable currency from the states that are

sacrificing their youth for it. However, the foreign currency is being invested into the

economy to keep the brothels functioning, even if the profit is being funneled out of the

region.

Thanks to the United States and the World Bank’s encouragement, tourism

became a primary means of gaining economic benefits for the entire Southeast Asian

region. The responses to this tourism have been both positive, in terms of economic 19

benefits, and negative, due to the increase of foreign cultural influences in the region.

The governments have, however, utilized tourism’s economic benefits despite the evident

negative influences. The direct impact of tourism includes the interaction between the

tourists and locals along with open communications.xxxvii This increase in connection is a

direct result of globalization and enhances globalization through these connections.

Sex Tourism

As demonstrated, sex tourism was an invaluable source of foreign investment

after the war, but this was not its original intention. As the Vietnam War progressed,

access to foreign currency was attained through debt and R&R services provided to the

troops. This debt however began to build quickly as the war progressed, without any

means to curb it. In 1971 Southeast Asia received a recommendation from the World

Bank as how to pay off their debts: mass tourism. The World Bank provided economic

initiatives to Southeast Asia as the region embraced this recommendation.xxxviii The

World Bank, it can be assumed, did not intend for tourism to be interpreted as sex tourism but rather tourism in general with tourists visiting beaches and beautiful foreign sites. However, this does not completely remove the complicity of the World Bank in encouraging sex tourism, after they were aware of the tactics of the regional governments. In order to fulfill this idea of mass tourism the region took their cue from the R&R services, so profitable due to foreign soldiers. The region resorted, again, to one of its greatest assets: their beautiful, exotic girls. This seemingly innocent and promising recommendation of the World Bank led to the four billion dollar a year Thai sex industry.xxxix 20

Sex tours were promoted throughout Europe with destinations being various

locales in Southeast Asia. These tours used phrases such as “very suitable for bachelors”

and “sauna and massage available” to subtly advertise for these sex tours. Within these

European advertisements were elements of racism. One such advertisement explained

young girls in Thai society: “When Thai girls are mature, they ask to see the tribal chief:

he arranges a sexual rendezvous with their fathers, with compliance of the wives.”xl This type of marketing for tourism occurred throughout Europe, offering tour packages to willing European travelers. Thanks to globalization, people in Europe could buy young girls half-way around the world then travel to use them.

According to recent studies, “approximately 60 percent of Thailand’s tourists visit solely for sexual purposes.”xli This is an astounding amount of people and money from

around the world going to one region for an, allegedly, illegal purpose. This is a large

sum of money devoted to Thailand’s economy, which Thailand depends on every year.

A 1993 estimate of Thailand prostitutes placed the number at anywhere from 800,000 to

two million. The brothels in Ranong, Thailand tripled from1988 to 1992. The Ranong

brothels reportedly use armed guards and electrified barbed wire; while many of the

brothels also contained hidden passages to conceal the slaves from the police.xlii These

are only estimates but the fact that this range is so broad indicates how invisible, and

uncared for these sex slaves are. Triple the number of brothels further indicates the

degree to which these ‘services’ are utilized by both the clientele and the government

which should be protecting the girls that were forced into the brothels. Southeast Asia 21

contains a world of slavery allowed to progress with silent governmental sanction in the late 20th century.

Modern tourism is a dimension of globalization. Interconnectivity opens the world and allows people to travel around the world. Businesspeople use their multinational corporations to visit these places and globalization. Advances in communication and transportation technology have led various peoples of the world to realize that the world is not as large as was once believed and they can safely travel where they wish for whatever reasons they wish. Western countries are much stricter about sex slavery within their country; therefore, the tourist or businessman can simply jump on an airplane and fly to where restrictive laws are not maintained.

This use of technology to reach the destinations of their choice is an obvious use of the technology, along with the availability of tourist information on the internet. The internet allows instant access to all prostitution promotions, sex tours, mail-order brides, pornography, and rape videos.xliii The internet is a by-product of globalization which allows access to Southeast Asian tours offered in Europe. Tours like the late 1980s Scan

Thai Travelers Club:

Thai women don’t bother about sexual intimidation as Norwegian women do. Western women consider prostitution as a form of repression whereas Thai women see prostitution as a cultural asset. These dark women are attractive because they are not aware of human rights. Getting sick of women’s rights fanatics – join Scan Thai. Thai women don’t strive to be equal to men. On the contrary, it is innate in their culture to serve their husbands.xliv

Globalization allows international discussion and selling of sex tourism. An American can buy a Southeast Asian girl by utilizing a European tour agency. 22

Technology has also been utilized in the destination brothels. Technology can be

seen through cell-phones, air-conditioning, electrical fencing, barbed wire, and steel doors at the brothels, yet “the stories [and lives] of sex workers are the same as they were fifty years ago.”xlv Technology may have helped the clients reach their beautiful foreign

sex slaves and further entrap these sex slaves but these women have been further trapped

by the technology brought over from across the seas.

However, Western men are not the only ones to blame for utilizing globalization

to be sex tourists. It is estimated that eighty to eighty-seven percent of all Thai men have

utilized some form of prostitution.xlvi This is a massive domestic usage of prostitutes

along with the globalized Western, Asian, and Eastern European usage. The brothels

specifically created for Asian men are more inconspicuous than those that are for

Western men.xlvii This particular difference can be easily explained due to the difference

in the target clientele. In most instances, Western men explicitly wish to find and use the

brothels and therefore must be able to locate them. Local people are aware of brothel

locations and do not require the same exterior display that brothels used by foreign men do. Globalization explains the international use of sex slaves, but can also be utilized to

better understand domestic use of sex slaves.

Lure of Money

Many of the girls found in the city brothels were lured out of their homes with the

promise of a better economic situation being found in the city. Recruiters promise a

better life, more money, a way to feed their starving family; yet few of those recruited

knew what was coming.xlviii Young, inexperienced girls, especially in the rural back 23

villages of Burma, are primary targets of recruiters. The younger the girl means the

greater the probability of the girl being a virgin, and not yet exposed to sexually transmitted infections (STIs).xlix

Additionally, families receive money immediately if the girls leave immediately

with the recruiter. This money is the start of the girls’ debt, similar to the bondage

system of the early years of Southeast Asia. Sexual abuse and rape occur throughout the

recruitment, even if it is discouraged due to decreasing the value of the virgin girl. When

the girl reaches her initial destination, it is not permanent. Usually girls are moved from brothel to brothel, to provide new ‘faces’ in each brothel, and some are locked up to

guarantee there are no escapes. Threat, force, debt bondage, and physical confinement

are the most common confinement methods.l

The initial debt is soon increased through transport funding, protection money,

clothing, and personal items. This debt is accumulated along with beatings and rapes, all

intent upon breaking the will of the new slaves. When their spirits are broken they come

to believe that “only the owner and his network, which included police, could get them

home safely,” and will submit to the accumulation of debt as the brothel owners tell her

to do so.li The debt continues to increase as girls buy goods from the brothel’s store, the cost of medications and time lost when sick, time off for menstruation, turning away a customer who refuses to wear a condom (if this luxury is allowed), or various other ‘sins’ a girl commits and the owner can find a way to charge her for it.lii

This enslavement, however, is not simply due to the brothel owners and agents.

Whole communities are part of this system due to their silence. Their silence is bought 24

and paid for by the brothel owners; the communities need the benefits it receives from

sending a few of their girls to become slaves.liii The communities need all the assistance they can garner, even at the cost of losing their girls to the brothels. People can no longer

live on subsistence farming, another by-product of globalization, goods are required, and money is needed for these goods. The parents accept the money from the agents and the

communities are silent, some members having already sold their daughter and some with

daughters too young to do so.

Prices of food and goods rose with the growing globalized economy yet there

were small returns for the poorer farmers selling at the market. In an effort to enlist in

mass consumerism and industrialization, families literally needed to sell their daughter to

attain enough income to live. In Thailand, especially the rural and mountainous areas, it

has become essential to sell one’s daughter so that she can make money in the city and

send it home, after her initial purchase price. As Kevin Bales succinctly and sadly writes,

“one girl equals one television.”liv These families are must become part of the globalization encompassing the world, without regard to the cost incurred for doing so.

Economic globalization has successfully sacrificed one girl so her family can live, and watch TV.

Furthermore, in the cities where the girls must prostitute themselves, the local men who buy their services are receiving their money from the industrial work that has been moved from the first and second worlds to take advantage of the poverty of the third world.lv Economic globalization has doubly affected these nations: first, by forcing 25

families to sell their daughters simply to survive and, second, by providing their urban

citizens with enough money for the brothels.

As men sit around the dirty tables of the bars-turned-brothels, they look at the scantily clad, awkward girls attempting to dance; each girl wears a number on her dress.

As the waitresses attend to the customers, they receive drink orders and girl orders. In a nearby building, young girls are displayed behind glass windows, with a price tag hanging from her, displayed as a piece of meat or a article of clothing, the men appraise the girls knowingly and select a girl from the lot, paying the price on the tag for an hour with her.lvi Brothel agents look for two things when hunting for sex slaves: youth and looks. Most prefer to find girls between the ages of thirteen and sixteen. Preferably, these girls will already be being abused, whether physically or emotionally or through their way of life.lvii

Siri is a young girl in a brothel; her story is a common example of the lives of sex slaves, much like Lin Lin. She is chosen by the clients because she appears to be younger than she is: fifteen. Due to her appearance, she can be sold repeatedly as a ‘new girl’ at a higher price. She attempts to use a condom and will normally succeed in this except when raped by pimps and policemen. Due to her virgin appearance, she is usually with ten to eighteen men a night. She is one of the more profitable girls, a precious and expendable commodity, yet must be raped by three hundred men a month to pay the rent.

At this point, she has come to believe that she deserves it. As one author writes, “It is the adjustment of the concentration camp, an effort to make sense of the horror.”lviii Belief

that they deserve it is a coping mechanism, a way to handle the atrocities that no human 26

being should suffer, let alone by the people that should be protecting her. If they believe

they deserve it, they might physically survive the torture, even if they are mentally

broken with a diseased body.

Cultural Globalization

Southeast Asian states resorted to sex tourism because the governments of the

region saw “young rural women desperate to raise money for their families” as their most

valuable asset, a precious commodity.lix Sex tourism was openly advertised in Southeast

Asia, and was aimed particularly at Western men. The women prostitutes were portrayed

as “young, beautiful, submissive, sexy and cheap Thai girls [that] were desperate to cater

to the unfulfilled needs of men who deserved better treatment than that meted out by

aggressive, demanding, and unfeminine Western women.”lx This depiction of the young

prostitutes was intended to appeal to Western men. This would not have been possible

without globalization assisting in the opening of boundaries to allow more tourists or

businesses to be located in this region. However, this led to a link between “sex industry

of ‘peace’ and the presence of international peacekeeping personnel in post-conflict

areas.”lxi The slavery of Southeast Asian women offered peace for the entire region.

Prostitution = Western Clothing

The girls of these poor rural towns are often promised marriage, jobs, a holiday, student grant, political asylum, or a visa. The slave keepers of today mirror their 6th century counterparts as they use debt bondage, confiscation of earnings, sleep and food deprivation. Despite these atrocities, some of the slaves have come to except their life and believe that this is their only option.lxii Unfortunately, these women are, in some 27

ways, correct. Due to the societal stigma of what has happened to these girls they are no longer accepted anywhere except at the brothels. The brothels are the one place where they believe they have any value. They are stigmatized by the rapes, unable to marry or work in any other profession due to this stigma, while the rapists go unpunished in both society and the law.

Most of the rural girls recruited to earn money for their families in the city were told that they would be working as maids, cooks, laundresses, waitresses, dishwashers, or other such professions. The majority of girls do not return home after being coerced into working, some believe that if their virginity has already been taken they should at least earn some money for their family; others are just too ashamed to return to their villages.lxiii Obviously, the women and children are unprepared for what awaits them in

the city. They are unaware, so they ‘volunteer’ for the job.

Once the girls are introduced to the world of sex slavery, they are fully aware of

the differences between the local and global brothels. Learning from globalization, the

girls utilize the differences in brothels. Kai was a twenty one year old slave who had

come to accept her slavery and attempted to make the most out of it:

She’d been in the game since her teens, selling her body in hopes of saving money and getting rich. So far it wasn’t working very well . . . She dreamed of selling herself to wealthy foreign tourists instead of the local Thai yokels. Pattaya [a large city in Thailand] was where the dreams would be realized . . . the pay was better in the globalized bars of Pattaya than in the isolated Trat Inn.lxiv

This display of preference for foreign tourists indicates the prevalence of foreign tourism

in the major cities of Southeast Asia. Brothels can be found throughout the region, but

the girls, once they have be broken and believe there is no escape, realize how profitable, 28

even for themselves, the globalized brothels are compared to the local. Globalization has

successfully created the demand, bringing tourists from around the world, and the supply,

girls sent to brothels, in order to earn foreign currency.

One account of the slavery these girls are forced into consists of ten to eighteen

hours a day for twenty-five days of the month with at least five to fifteen clients a day.

Whenever the girls are pregnant, they have two ‘options,’ if that luxury is allowed them:

illegally abort the fetus or work while pregnant. They are occasionally tested for

HIV/AIDS without their consent and never told the results of their tests. Meanwhile, the

brothel owners, immigration officials, and some other law enforcement officials are

informed. If they test positive, they have violated the law and they could be returned to

their country of origin, but with tattered honor, probably STIs, possibly AIDS, and a completely shattered self-esteem.lxv These culturally stigmatized conditions have been spread by globalization and utilized by globalization to further entrap the girls into their

slavery.

Escape from the slavery is possible. Three ways exist in which some of these

girls could leave the brothels: “escape, arrest and deportation, or return to the village as a

recruiter.” Escape is never a real option due to the fact that most women are transported

into a brothel from a foreign country. As illustrated, these countries are extremely

different from each other, including their language. If a foreign slave attempts to run,

she, more than likely, does not know the language of the country that she is in nor does

she have papers, money, or the knowledge of which direction to turn. More than likely,

the woman will be caught and beaten, often by the police, for her attempt. Arrest and 29

deportation will more than likely lead to imprisonment on one side of the border or more

prostitution on the other. The last option allows the woman to rely on her kidnapper,

trafficker, and rapist to return her to her home so that she can become the recruiter to

convince a young innocent to return to the city to “wear western clothing.”lxvi

Some women volunteer to become prostitutes because they are better off with the

money they can earn in that line of work than by living with their family. What

traditional societal female roles enable her family to sell her to brothel agents and for her

to accept this? Aspects of Southeast Asian society such as inheritance laws that value males over females, lack of government support, limited education, and the patriarchal system.lxvii Females have been commodified in the rapidly globalizing region, viewed

simply as goods to be exchanged at the best rate available for that particular item.lxviii Yet

this does not explain how this could have happened. Throughout the region’s history,

mistresses and minor wives have advanced the reputation of the husband; this custom has

evolved into using prostitution to advance a man’s reputation. This practice is accepted

by wives because it is better than other forms of extra-marital sex.lxix It is a traditional practice among the citizens of Southeast Asia to recognize and encourage the prostitution, as an acceptable past time.

Furthermore, girls are viewed as disposable, in this male-dominated region.lxx For

example, throughout Burma it is an accepted practice for the army to sweep through

villages looking for porters. These male porters would accompany the army through the

mountains of Burma, a death sentence for nearly all the young males. The only way out

of this task is to buy your way. These poor villages do not have enough money to buy 30

their way out under normal circumstances so they turn to the same Southeast Asian commodity that the governments do: beautiful daughters. “And so daughters are sent to

Thailand in an attempt to protect the sons.”lxxi In a certain sense, the families must choose between evils. The daughter does have a possibility to survive and provide for the family, where the son would be sentenced to certain death. Can this justify the family selling their daughters into slavery? This action, of taking boys or accepting money, is a governmentally sanctioned action and the method of attaining that money is accepted by the same government, and preys upon the culture of the region.

Higher Expectations

Rural towns are the ideal location for recruiters, poverty within these regions is one of the crucial aspects that agents look for, yet it is not the very poorest who garner the attention of the agents. The target families are those families a step above absolute poverty. These families have higher expectations than their poorer counterparts and wish for things, such as foreign television sets.lxxii However, their current way of life will not allow such luxury, so they give their daughters away for a chance to attain these goods.

These higher expectations demand fulfillment and money, the demands must be met by the family, and thus the family turns to their daughter. A family selling their daughters into slavery is a common method for brothels and pimps to receive young girls for the sex industry. However, some families are unaware of exactly what they are doing; if they do know, they are unaware of the conditions in which the girls will be working. For example, when asked what prostitution means, young girls in ‘target villages’ will often respond: “wearing Western clothes in a restaurant.”lxxiii This simple 31

statement is a dramatic indication of how closely globalization and the sex sector are

linked throughout Southeast Asia. Many of the girls are completely unaware of what they will be doing but they are aware that it is somehow connected to the globalized world of the West.

Personal accounts and descriptions show that conditions have not altered throughout the years. A woman in her late sixties describes the world of the modern sex industry as compared to the conditions of fifty years ago:

Many girls still come from the area around my own village, so things are the same now as then. The trafficking was the same. But some things are different. Conditions are much worse these days. Before, there wasn’t so much competition. We could make a better living and live quite well. Now all the girls are poorer. There are so many poor girls and they compete against each other and drive down the price. And there are always new girls so the older ones get paid less if they want customers. It was much better when I was young.lxxiv

Globalization uses the culture within the region to force girls into believing that it is their

duty to be sold, bartered, and raped. Beyond this, globalization has convinced these girls

that they should compete with each other to gain the best price; their own culture is used

against them. Furthermore, the increased expectations of foreign cultures have influenced the lifestyles and demands of Southeast Asia. The value of a female child’s life has been outweighed by an expectation of a television set.

Political Globalization

As indicated, this “industry” of sex was in place before the soldiers arrived;

however, this global militarization both increased and encouraged the trafficking of

women and enslavement of women into prostitution. It is uncertain what would have

happened if the United States had not intervened in Vietnam, but it is certain that the 32

prostitution and subsequent sex slavery of the modern era would not have increased if not for the obvious support by the American troops and United States government.

In order for the aforementioned sex tourism to operate, the brothel owners must

gain the cooperation of local and foreign agencies, along with silent governmental

approval. Some of these organizations that need to be involved include banks, airlines, tour operators, hotels, bars, brothel owners, brothel agents, and traffickers.lxxv

Unfortunately, all of these agencies, whether foreign or national, assent to the workings

of sex tourism. This is not to claim that all of them know exactly what is occurring, but

neither can all of these agencies claim complete innocence in the workings of the system,

not when ‘bachelor’ packages are offered in their brochures.

Poverty plays a very important role in gaining the cooperation of these entities,

but it is far from the only factor contributing to this slavery. Michelle Kuo explains the situation in the region succinctly in “Asia’s Dirty Secret” when she writes:

The growth of the sex industry in Southeast Asia is not an accidental by-product of poverty. Rather, the increase in prostitution and trafficking is a result of a systematic strategy of economic development. Asian governments, conscious of the influential role the sex sector plays within the larger economy, neglect to enact specific policies to halt its growth. Often policemen and government officials are themselves customers wanting sexual favors; thus protecting and upholding the economic bases of prostitution and trafficking.lxxvi

Economy and the sex sector is a vicious, unending cycle supported by the economy of

globalization and the governments of the region. Even if there are international or

regional laws that could help the woman in these conditions, they are rarely, if ever, enacted for the girl’s benefit. Furthermore, Kuo emphasizes that this is a conscious effort by the government in order to utilize the sex sector. The governments are part of a 33

systematic effort to deny these women their local, national, regional, and international

rights, and everyone knows it.lxxvii

Voluntary? Coercion? Legal?

The girls that are taken from these villages often ‘volunteer’ to go with their captors due to the promise of money. This aspect presents difficulties when forming international, regional, and national laws to deal with these issues. Therefore, the issue of volunteer versus coercion is a controversial issue but one that must be addressed to understand the difficulties in creating laws to help the enslaved. No one can be sure where volunteering for this work and being coerced to work separate. There are obvious forms of coercion or force, such as a brothel in Thailand that is “surrounded by electrified

barbed wire and armed guards.”lxxviii This is one of the most extreme examples of

brothels within all of Southeast Asia but nothing is done about it. However, most

instances are not as clear cut as this extreme Thai brothel.

One of the most common convergences of coercion and volunteerism arises in the

form of debt bondage, as examined earlier. Recruiters for brothels and pimps will

emphasize the poverty of the families and promise jobs with decent wages and new

clothes for the daughter. The recruiters will then give the family a certain amount of

money; this becomes the first of the daughter’s debts that she must work off. The debt is

used as leverage to keep the daughter in the brothel. She must stay so her family can

keep the money and survive.

Is this voluntary or coercion? If a woman voluntarily goes with a recruiter

because she wished to help her family, is this coercion? “In these contexts, however, any 34

meaningful distinction between free will and coercion becomes academic.”lxxix Despite this assertion, the differentiation between willful prostitution, coerced prostitution, and sex slavery has caused serious obstructions while discussing these issues in the international sphere. Prostitution is legal in some areas; therefore, a decision must be made regarding a line being drawn between those who wish to prostitute themselves and the illegal act of forcing one to prostitute oneself: slavery.

International Laws

Technically, slavery, or freedom from it, has been part of international law for numerous years, yet that law has remained largely unimplemented around the world.

This lack stems from a deficiency of the necessary structure and desire to carryout the laws. According to Christine van den Anker certain “principles of justice” should be applied throughout the world: “1. respect for the rights of victims; 2. cosmopolitan impartiality (justice for all); 3. respect for the agency of victims; 4. commitment to long- term structural change of the global economy; 5. provision of support to develop viable alternative livelihoods.”lxxx Globalization, in the form of international laws and universal

values, should, theoretically, be spreading these principles of justice around the world.

Throughout the last century as prostitution transferred from local prostitution to governmentally sanctioned brothels to sex slavery, governments and the global international community were not silent, even if their laws and regulations have proven largely ineffective. In 1928, the Anti-Trafficking Act was put into place outlawing trafficking and exempting women and girls from prosecution; however, this law fell short of actually outlawing prostitution. There were not any minimum punishments for the 35

traffickers but there was a thirty day ‘reform’ for girls. In 1949, the United Nations

arranged a Convention for the Suppression of the Traffick in Person and the Exploitation

of the Prostitution of Others along with a Thailand Law specified as the Suppression of

Prostitution Act.lxxxi These acts stopped neither Thailand nor the United State from

officially designating Rest and Recreation areas during the Vietnam War.

Slavery was internationally outlawed by the League of Nations in the 1926

Slavery Convention. Slavery and inhuman treatment was a violation of the 1948 United

Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The International Covenant on Civil

and Political Rights of 1966 was ratified by one hundred forty-nine countries.lxxxii All of these seemingly good intentions pave the way to slave brothels and corrupt law enforcement officials.

Unfortunately, international and national laws do not definitively answer how to distinguish between force, coercion, or volunteering. A researcher of Burmese and Thai sex slavery classifies the ways in which one enters prostitution:

Voluntary indicates that the woman, prostitute-to-be, approaches the owner/manager of a sex establishment herself; bonded implies the involvement of parents or guardians, who receive money from an agent or owner for giving away their daughter; and involuntary conveys the use of deception and coercion of the women by an agent or owner/manger.lxxxiii

The international community has defined slavery, and Southeast Asian prostitution falls

under this definition. The international community agrees that illegal prostitution and child endangerment is incorrect, but beyond this, it is difficult to reach a consensus. No

one can agree upon coercion versus voluntary prostitution, as the researcher outlines.

This lack of consensus simply increases the danger of globalization in relation to the sex 36

industry. As the governments and non-governmental organizations attempt to agree,

forced prostitution still occurs and is strengthened by continued globalization.

However, the international realm has agreed to and distinguished four approaches

to the management of prostitution: legalization, prohibition, toleration, and regulation.

Legalized refers to sexual labor as a form of work and the sex workers deserve the same

rights as any other worker or laborer. Prohibition is a legal system in which all forms of

sex slavery, prostitution, or sex work is forbidden. Tolerationist criminalizes

organization of the sex work but not the act itself provided the act is hidden.

Regulationist is a legal system in which prostitution is legalized in specific areas and

outlawed in other areas.lxxxiv All four of these legal systems have advantages and disadvantages. Those systems that allow prostitution admit to its existence and can control it to some degree, but it is harder to distinguish between the various forms of sex

work. However, if a system outlaws sex work outright it is possible that these countries will not even admit to its existence and therefore cannot assists the victims or survivors of the industry, and however, if they acknowledge the existence would be easier than only outlawing some.

These four different methods of legality create difficulties in the international realm because the international law must recognize the legitimacy of the states that compose the international realm. Creating general international laws to coincide with national and regional laws, while simultaneously making these laws specific enough to do any good is a fine line to draw, and one which the international community has not yet managed to find. 37

Despite the negative influences of globalization, it must be acknowledged that it

has helped create awareness of the problem of sex trafficking. Some major examples of

international action include: 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1949 United

Nations (UN) Convention on the Suppression of the Traffic in Person and of the

Prostitution of Others, 1981 Convention on the Elimination of all forms of

Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), and UN Convention on the Rights of the

Child.lxxxv These and other international actions demonstrate the good-intentions and

potential promises of globalization and the international community, yet these laws have only created awareness and a false hope for those entrenched within the system (see

Appendix 1 and 2 for further information). According to international law, Southeast

Asia must cease all forms of slavery occurring within the region. This has, obviously, not occurred.

One of the first UN conventions to address the issue of modern regional slavery directly was the 1975 UN Working Group on Slavery. This group consisted of five members: India, Britain, Yugoslavia, Sierra, Leone, and Columbia. Importantly, this group contained no members from Southeast Asia or the United States. These meetings launched valiant efforts to formulate laws and resolutions in favor of woman and children in relation to slavery and trafficking but were continually denied the majority of their requests for aid and assistance. For any conventions they did manage to enact, they could not actually review the implementation, leaving them without any real power. One of the greatest accomplishments of this Group, however, was to involve NGOs. The NGOs became the under-funded Working Group’s eyes and ears in the world and helped to pass 38

the 1991 UN Voluntary Trust Fund of Contemporary Forms of Slavery, allowing states to

donate money to NGOs relating to slavery, although slow to gain wide acceptance this

has garnered more donations in 2000.lxxxvi Global Alliance Against the Traffick in

Women (GAATW) is a combination of NGOs working together against trafficking in women.

While NGOs are mostly accepted in the Western world, this is not the case in

Southeast Asia. Regional countries will accept the organizations on an individual basis

and NGOs are always ‘requested’ to maintain as little presence as possible when allowed

into the country. In Burma’s case, the most severe cases in the region, NGOs are not

allowed on any basis; occasionally, a religious organization can make it in and try to

discreetly help.lxxxvii ECPAT International (End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography,

and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes) continues to be one of the primary

sources of information for the UN and source of assistance to those in the region.lxxxviii

NGOs “were always in the vanguard”lxxxix of information gathering, reporting, and

assistance. ECPAT is one of the many NGOs that have been attempting to assist

globalization away from hindering the international community and use globalization as a

means to benefit the world in terms of human’s rights.

Another issue the Group faced was how slow actions were to occur. Any act or

resolution they tried to pass took about three years. Due to this time lapse, it is very

difficult to respond quickly to any reports they have received. In three years time, slave

girls would have changed hands multiple times and possibly be lost within the system again. In 1998, the Group realized that not all forms of slavery were covered by 39

international law and there were no mechanisms to respond to slavery.xc Despite the hope inspired by this Group that was supposed to help the sex slaves, they were impotent to do anything beside point at the problem as everyone else turned away. The history of the group exemplified and foreshadowed other efforts to deal with this problem.

Sexual slavery, as demonstrated, is not directly recognized by the UN.

Fortunately, forced prostitution was acknowledged in the1990 UN Mission to Cambodia

xci There are many peripheral issues addressed by the UN, such as trafficking and

protection of children, but sexual slavery is noticeably absent. In addition, UN officers

are immune if they are found to be involved in slavery.xcii A UN worker was unfairly

fired “for disclosing information on the involvement of UN workers in the sex trade.”xciii

The silence of the UN, about its own workers, only contributes to the global inaction against the Southeast Asian sex slavery. The very international government which should be protecting the victims and punishing the perpetrators are protecting the perpetrators and ignoring the victims.

The international realm is not the only entity acting in response to this global problem, President Clinton’s 1998 anti-trafficking strategy led to the 2000 adoption of the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act. The United States also had

Congressionally mandated reports on worldwide trafficking. Nearly all of the laws and regulations enacted by the United States are centered around the impact on the United

States, not the effect overseas.xciv The most recent law enacted by the US is a 2006

reauthorization of the 2000 law, which still focuses on the effect upon the United States. 40

These laws do not focus upon regional effects or trafficking but rather the effects on

United States citizens and any trafficking done within or into the United States borders.

The United States government has enacted certain laws in relation to trafficking in

Southeast Asia. The United State’s Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report provides three

tiers to rank the compliance of states to the minimum standards for the elimination of

Trafficking. Within this ranking system, Tier One indicates complete compliance with

trafficking standards. Seventeen of the countries ranked in this category in 2002 were

also destination countries, with few to no services for trafficked persons.xcv Either the

United States government was completely unaware of what was occurring, doubtful due to its participation in the UN with NGOs supplying information, or the government is

fully aware of what is occurring and content to allow this to occur. Placing these

destination countries within the top tier, placed them outside the scrutiny applied to the

other tiers, for not complying with the regulations.

In a series of articles about sex trafficking in Cambodia in January 2004, Nicholas

D. Kristof praised Bush’s efforts to make sex traffick an issue and to help the women of

Southeast Asia. Yet, one year later, in January 2005, his column was critical of the Bush

administration for allowing sex trafficking pressure to diminish. Kristof’s articles

provide additional stories, similar to the ones previously provided. Kristof provides a

two-party strategy for the West to follow in Southeast Asia: “Crack down on the worst

forms of flesh-peddling . . . [and] crack down on corrupt police officers who protect the

slave traders.”xcvi Furthermore, if groups attempt to act alone by buying girls out of slavery, this only assists brothels and pimps by making it profitable to sell girls to non- 41

governmental organizations, which will be discussed in detail below.xcvii Very little has changed despite the good intentions of the United States administrations, non- governmental groups, and the international community.

Success?

In 1995, the international community finally saw Western countries begin to punish Western tourists and advertisers for their role in what was occurring. Conventions

on “child labor” began to appear and address issues of debt bondage and prostitution,

customarily defining a child as fewer than eighteen years of age. However, as these

issues began to arise, old questions began to come up. Is eighteen years of age the

correct number to use? Should all forms of prostitution be outlawed or only certain

forms? Organizations, governments, and agencies took different sides of these two

questions, causing dissention within the ranks of the international community, resulting in no significant accomplishments.xcviii

In 2001, the Protocol to Supplement the Convention against Transnational

Organized Crime offered a definition of trafficking:

The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of persons, by means of threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person, having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor, or services, slavery, or practices similar to slavery, servitude, or the removal of organs.xcix

This definition is an attempt to cover everything, and encompasses many of the issues that researchers and NGOs had been declaring for years, as shown in the previous listing of what trafficking included. However, this definition causes even more problems 42

because it left terminology undefined. The distinction between coercion versus volunteer

is not laid out. Regional authorities could easily avoid the law by simply declaring that

the person’s participation if voluntary. The international community was attempting to

rectify the situation yet the definition is only words and not action. This definition is recognition by the international realm that there is a serious problem and they are trying to do something about it, but these are empty words as the international community does not enact them.

Furthermore, slavery is still left ambiguously defined: “The loss of free will, where a person is forced through violence or threat of violence to give up the ability to sell freely his/her labor power. In this definition, slavery has three key dimensions: control of another person, the appropriation of labor power, and the use or threat of violence.”c Once again, the international realm appears to be acting, while not actually

committing to anything. Slavers can easily claim that the victim has freely gone with them. This may actually be the case if she was coerced or is unaware of what she will

face. Furthermore, in many regional states, prostitution is not considered ‘work’ or

‘labor’ thus the logic goes, sex slavery is not technically the appropriation of labor. This

definition is full of holes which slave traders can easily slip through, just as the

trafficking definition is a good intentioned effort to act but left frustratingly powerless.

One of the most recent attempts to act against this slavery was supplements

provided to the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons,

Especially Women and Children (Trafficking Protocol). The 2000 Trafficking Protocol

is still central to international intentions and efforts. The Trafficking Protocol was 43

supplemented by the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and

Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Air, and Sea, 2003 and 2004

respectively.ci Taken together, these laws indicate that the international laws are finally

attempting to reflect the implicit regional and international nature of these crimes.

Furthermore, the laws also reflect the recognition that technology has come to play a role

in the way these crimes have been occurring. These laws demonstrate that trafficking

and sex slavery are organized in their procedures and utilize any technological advances

they can to increase their profit. Despite the fact that this technology has been utilized

for years, the international realm is recognizing that it does in fact play a significant role.

There are several optional protocols attached to child labor protocols and the

Trafficking Protocol which can be ratified by a state, as it sees fit. However, these

optional protocols do not need to be signed or adopted by the nations who are part of the

protocol to which the optional protocol is attached.cii These optional protocols are an

important part of the primary protocols yet are not required aspects. A state can easily

sign the primary protocol yet not commit to the secondary attached protocols. In this

way, the state maintains the appearance of committing itself to an international protocol

to protect the people in peril.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations

in 1948 and remains one of the founding principles of the international organization.

Physical and sexual violations defy three articles of this declaration.ciii

Article 4. No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms. 44

Article 5. No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Article 13. (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state. (2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.civ

These basic rights are supposed be the fundamental tenets from which the nations of the

world are to act but these rights are not given to all. These rights are forcibly taken away

from the rural girls in Southeast Asia. The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights

provides a starting base from which the international community was to act; however, it

was after this Declaration that the worst of the brothels and sex slavery began.

Shortly after the Declaration was issued, another resolution was passed by the

UN. This resolution outlawed all forms of debt bondage. The Supplementary

Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade Institutions, and Practices

Similar to Slavery outlawed the “status or condition arising from a promise made by an

indebted person to provide personal services or the services of a third party where the

length and nature of the services are not limited or defined or the reasonable value of the

services are not applied to the debt.”cv The numerous examples of debt bondage previously given indicate the level of commitment the international community

demonstrated to this particular law.

As shown, numerous instruments in international law could assist the people

being sold into sex slavery, yet they are not enforced. One of the primary problems

behind enforcement is that none of the instruments cover all the aspects of the issue.

Trafficking Protocol is the closest the UN has ever come to dealing with all the issues but

the problem with this is that the Trafficking Protocol asserts a law enforcement angle, not 45

a human rights angle.cvi The primary problem with the law enforcement angle is that it deals with people in terms of breaking the laws and keeping the peace, not that their basic human rights are being violated. The law enforcement approach treats victims as criminals, just as much as the traffickers and slavers. A human rights approach, however, recognizes sex slavery as a violation of a person’s basic human rights and can treat the victim as an abused person, not a law breaker. However, the Trafficking Protocol is one of the best measures introduced, thus far, and closer to helping the situation in Southeast

Asia than any other international law before it.

Another difficulty in successful enforcement is that there are “no comprehensive, overarching, agreed upon” structures available for regions or international laws to look.

Many of the instruments are “complementary or overlapping and are sometimes conflicting or contradictory.”cvii International law is attempting to do good for the international, regional, and local peoples of the world but the actors in the international realm cannot decide among themselves what to do, what option to use, how to define things. International law offers an amazing space for people to unite but when it comes to deciding upon the boundaries, punishments, and definitions of prostitution and sex slavery the international community cannot seem to agree on anything except for occasional working definitions. Every entity has their own agenda and responses to these questions while some do not wish for this issue to be resolved. Yet while the international realm cannot decide these things, it is utilizing its time to pass laws that could do some good if they did not contradict each other or would be backed by the 46

majority of the international arena. Meanwhile, ‘virgin’ girls dance awkwardly for

customers as armed guards block the exit.

Some beneficial progress is being made however, thanks partially to globalization. A 2000 French trial was the first trial in which a Frenchman was convicted of raping a girl in Thailand; he was not punished in Thailand. This is a prime example of

“extraterritorial legislation” in which a country regulates their nationals when not in- country or regulates foreigners while in-country.cviii This is a crucial roadblock to

convictions and prosecutions because both countries must be willing to prosecute the offender, or at least not stand in the way of a prosecution. Evidence must be gathered or a foreigner must be held, both of which could cause a severe international incident. Fear of upsetting relations between countries cause difficulties in the prosecution due to the fact that globalization has enabled a intermixing of foreigners and nationals in the same area. Globalization is also the primary reason for countries to be cautions in their dealings with other countries because they need to maintain good relations. Many nations appear to believe that turning away when a rape occurs is small price to pay, for relations to be maintained.

Regional Laws

Regional governments disregard laws enacted shortly after the Vietnam War.

Criminalization of Prostitution in 1960 created new laws in which the “prostitutes, procurers, and brothel owners” could all be prosecuted but the clients could not be. This particular law “depicts prostitutes as women in need of ‘moral rehabilitation.’”cix This

law indicates how women were viewed as compared to the clients. Clients could not be 47

detained or be held accountable for any actions, no matter the circumstances, age of the

woman/child, or force applied. Another local law was the Entertainment Places Act of

1966 this was simply a different name for a brothel and equally not enforced, lax police

officers were supposed to enforce a license on those businesses which “have women

attend male customers”cx but these often corrupt officers enforced this law as much as the

previous laws, not at all. Ironically, Thailand’s penal code of 1956 was stricter than the

1960 laws, which were supposed to assist the prostitutes and sex slaves.cxi

Closer to Southeast Asia, Japan and the “Four Tigers” (South Korea, Hong Kong,

Taiwan, and Singapore) poured money into buying buildings across the region. They

utilized the electronics and sex industries to acquire money then reinvested the profit in

the other. These countries use their combined, or singular, resources to buy criminals,

police, administrations, and property in order to establish their own sex industries within the Southeast Asian region.cxii This obvious flaunting of the laws and regulations at all levels of society was neither stopped nor hindered, but rather facilitated by the connections established by globalization.

In 1960, Thailand passed the Suppression of Prostitution Act due to the 1949 UN

Convention, mentioned above. Despite the deficiencies of the Act, it was a step in the direction of human rights. This step would have been impossible if not for globalization.

Thailand’s access to the international rules and regulations and the international pressure to conform to these regulations was possible due to the connection offered by globalization. Furthermore, Thailand is a part of the CEDAW to assist in the abolition of 48

trafficking, although the Act does not clarify how to do this.cxiii The international realm

has enacted rules without enforcement.

Regional governments and their desire for economic benefits carry a large burden of the responsibility for these abused citizens. Since the mid 1980s, governments of the region encouraged the development and importation of globalization’s economic aspects, primarily: industries, communications, and people. The increases in industry have left

the undereducated woman no place to work, the governments did very little to assist these

people, and they were left vulnerable to marauding predators. “In 1993, ministers and

representatives of Asian states gathered in Bangkok [Thailand] signed a declaration

which stipulated that while human rights may well be ‘universal in nature’ it is crucial to

bear in mind mitigating ‘national and regional peculiarities.”’cxiv These same ministers

are supposed to be committed to the UN Declaration of Human Rights and the other

binding international resolutions but they admit that they are not following this protocol.

Outright denial of international law is difficult to deal with when the international community cannot conclude what all of the resolutions and definitions mean; and countries desire to maintain relations with a legitimate sovereign government.

The lack of accountability in the international realm is echoed in the actions of the

Southeast Asian police officials. In the words of one trafficked child from Bangladesh:

Some of the people in the neighbourhood realized what was happening to me because they could hear me crying so they helped me to escape and they found one of my aunts who was also living in Delhi. I was taken to the police so that they could help me and punish the trafficker but instead they arrested me because I didn’t have a passport. In the thanna [police station] I was locked in a room. It was like at the trafficker’s house because five policemen raped me.cxv 49

Although this account is not from the region it explains what is invisible within Southeast

Asia. This is a common account from women who are ‘rescued’ by local police. In conjunction, police notoriously attend brothels and receive protection money from

owners. The police are widely known to assist the brothel owner and pimps. Yet, contrary to all the evidence of protection money, assisting the owners, assisting the pimps, and abusing the women and children only one Thai officer has ever been prosecuted. Furthermore, this case was only prosecuted because it involved a well- known murder.cxvi In other words, prosecution only occurs when there is global attention,

suggesting a way in which globalization can offer solutions.

The first direct effort of regionally dealing with sex slavery and the trafficking of women and girls occurred in 1999 with the Bangkok Declaration on Irregular Migration.

This Declaration did not accomplish much in reality but it displayed that someone in the region realized that certain illegal activities needed to be curbed.cxvii In 2000, Southeast

Asia, other Asian/Pacific countries, the European Union, Russia, the UN, and certain

NGOs combined their efforts to create the Conference in Manila. This conference was

primarily intended to increase the communication between the states, hopefully

increasing the ability to enforce some international regulations.

A common problem throughout the region is treating victims as criminals. This

behavior toward victims gives few reasons for victims to cooperate with the police or feel

comfortable stepping forward.cxviii This is assuming that the police are not being bribed

by the brothel owner. Most of the time, the police are receiving bribes from brothel owners and will assist them when necessary. On the rare occasions that a girl manages to 50

pay her entire debt, the brothel owner will call the police for a raid. The police will raid

the brothel and take the girl into custody where the foreign girl has two ‘options:’ allow

the brothel owner to bribe the police and return to debt or she can refuse the brothel owner and be thrown to the border. The border where the girl is thrown, conveniently, consists of army patrols where the free slave would endure further arrest and rapes for not having documentation; also conveniently, a brothel agent is at the border to escort her back to the brothel if she does not wish to cross the certain-death border areas, these transportation fees begin her new debt.cxix All of the aforementioned activities are illegal

under international law but due to the ineffectual enforcement, these people deem they

can proceed at will, and with the silent, and sometimes vocal, authority of their government.

In order to work around certain international regulations, the regional

governments do not equate trade in women with slavery. If the government would equate

this trade with slavery, they would have to admit that prostitution is a form of labor.cxx

The global international community may have difficulties defining sex slavery and prostitution but it does not have any difficulty with labor protocols and definitions. If prostitution became a type of labor in Southeast Asia, they would have to make a pretense of adhering to labor laws, which are much stricter and concrete, as seen, than the ineffectual laws ‘governing’ sexual slavery.

Global Governance: “Empty Gestures”

As much as the international law is contradictory and ineffectual, regional laws are not improvements. In the Philippines, a person is, technically, not allowed to sell sex; 51

yet, there is an official licensing procedure for prostitutes. Thailand’s legislation

appeared to attempt to fix the problem of sex slavery yet simply made the business

slightly more subtle. Owners closed brothels and opened ‘bars’ and ‘massage parlors.’

Girls could not live at the brothel so now the owner controlled them at two prisons instead of one.cxxi The Thai Immigration Act is held over the heads of the slaves to ensure compliance with brothel owners. The police are used as scare tactics by the brothel owners and agents. If one of the slaves is arrested using this act, they will be sexually assaulted in the Immigration Detention Centers and either arrested or simply sent back to the brothel from which they were taken.cxxii

In other words, the international and national laws are “well-meaning but empty gestures . . . window dressing to appeal to moral sensitivities.”cxxiii While the good

intentions of the international community superficially seem to make a difference; in

reality, these good intentions only pave the road to brothels. The path to brothels may

have been dirt roads with unclear boundaries before globalization became a primary

aspect in sex slavery, but now the road to a sex slave has been paved with ineffectual,

although good-intentioned, international laws. By defining laws, yet not carrying these to

their conclusion, the international community, the symbol of the succeeding process of

globalization, has allowed sex slavery to prosper.

The superficiality of global governance efforts originates from the conventions,

sanctions, and regulations the international community has imposed upon Southeast Asia

yet never carried through. The United States began enacting trafficking regulations

throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. Despite the attempts of the United States, little 52

was gained.cxxiv There was an attempt to define trafficking in the international realm, but

the definition differed among groups. These superficial international, regional, and

national actions drew attention to the problem, but did next to nothing to alleviate the

affects on the victim.

Conclusion and Solutions

The international community’s progress in the realm of sex slavery and sex

trafficking is viewed by some as: “a somewhat disingenuous and illusory project.”cxxv

Despite the good intentions of the international community in utilizing globalization to benefit Southeast Asia, these laws and regulations fall far short of the human rights that should be protected by these laws. The international community has attempted various efforts to protect the people of Southeast Asia and their rights, but has been unable thus far to physically enforce the laws.

The global international community has three primary options for handling prostitution, more general than the four approaches to management offered previously.

Each option has valid arguments and each is, potentially, incredibly problematic. These three options are widely criticized and supported by various groups: the ‘liberatory’ approach offers an acknowledgement of sex work with contracts, ‘condemnation’ condemns all forms of sexual exploitation, and the ‘human-rights approach’ recognizes prostitution as work with work benefits.cxxvi The liberatory approach allows an

opportunity to contract with the sex workers and protect them from potential perpetrators.

Condemnation identifies a clear immutable boundary, in which no sex work is allowed at

all and, theoretically, everything is done to ensure this is the case. The human-rights 53

approach treats sex work as any other type of job, allowing for the benefits given to other

laborers.

Stark disparity exists between these three approaches that the international

community is finding difficult to overcome. Until the international community can

understand and solidify its stance on sex trafficking, globalization will continue to

increase and encourage the traffic and sexual sale of women in Southeast Asia and

beyond.

A possible solution to sex trafficking, offered by various NGOs, has been the idea of rescue operations. Rescue efforts have several positive effects. They will rescue, at least, one individual from the grasp of the brothels, and there is often good media coverage of the event which results in both fundraising and attention. The problem with rescue operations is that the people that are rescued will quickly be replaced unless the brothel itself is shut down and those responsible for it are brought to justice. If the person is rescued by being bought by an NGO directly from the brothel owner, this encourages sex slavery because this is simply another means for agents to gain money by stealing virgins from their rural villages.cxxvii Once again, the good-intentions of globalization inadvertently encourage sex slavery.

Local NGOs have been working as closely as they are able within the region. In

Cambodia, the NGOs are working with the local authorities, restaurant owners, taxi

drivers, boat paddlers, and “reliable neighbors” to attain any knowledge they can. NGOs

are attempting to persuade the authorities at all levels to focus their attention beyond the

small-scale and middle men to the owners and operators.cxxviii ‘Friends of Women’ and 54

‘Empower’ teach prostitutes about condoms, AIDS, and other risks.cxxix To this end,

sixty million free condoms are spread throughout Thailand in a year.cxxx NGOs have

made some progress throughout the years in assisting the victims of trafficking and sex

slavery, in whatever way they can, whether passing out condoms or negotiating with the

authorities.

Before the United States and the World Bank stepped into the Southeast Asian region, brothels could really only be found on little known dirt roads in inconspicuous

settings. After the region was introduced to globalization and the necessity of paying off the debt for the regional War, globalization, in the spirit of economic progression, stepped in to assist in this regional crisis. Globalization also became the primary encouragement and increase of sex slavery; and, thanks to globalization, the road to sex slavery has been well paved. Ineffectual, if well-intentioned, international laws have done little to slow the traffick along this road.

Although globalization is, more than likely, part of the cure to this endemic problem in Southeast Asia; history and modern regulations undeniably demonstrate that globalization both increases and encourages sex slavery and sex trafficking within the

Southeast Asian region. From American-centered United States’ laws, to impotent international laws, to regional disunity, and national economic necessities, victims of sex slavery have been deprived of many standard avenues of assistance.

Sex trafficking and slavery is an abusive, internationally illegal practice that flourishes in Southeast Asia. Despite the illegality of the sex industry, the local

economies rely upon the income received from this ‘sex sector.’ National governments 55

have encouraged this through lack of enforcement of laws and regulations while promoting sex tourism. Jill Gay writes that nations encourage prostitutes, saying that the prostitutes are fulfilling a role in society and are ‘patriotic’ for doing so.cxxxi These countries stress the need of having the prostitutes work because the states need the foreign capital and income the international tourists and businessmen could bring.

Globalization seemed to draw attention to the issue and encouraged the international community to create laws and regulations. These actions, however, were quickly abandoned and these laws simply utilized to make a political statement.

Southeast Asian sex slavery exploded with the emergence of globalization, introduced by

American soldiers and continues with global sex tourism. Utilized at first to pay off the debt, sex slavery has become one of the top sources of income for the nation, a source of income that relies upon foreign sex tourists to bring their income earned from foreign countries and deposit it into these businesses.

Globalization has both increased and encouraged the trafficking of sex slaves; however, it may be the only avenue available to provide a solution to this problem. Lin

Lin’s English-speaking customer was a direct result of the globalization that allowed him to visit a country half way around the world; however, the laws which allowed the policemen to rescue her were also influenced by the laws created by a globalized world.

As much as globalization formed the modern sex sector, it may be the only force to save future generations from being sold into a slavery encouraged by globalization. If this is to be the case, however, economic, cultural, and political globalization must fulfill its own promises of assistance. Following the example of the French case in which a 56

perpetrator was punished in France for a crime in Southeast Asia, the awareness brought by this, and a handful of similar cases, is a powerful method that can be utilized by the international community. Globalization must be utilized in such a way as to enforce punishment on the perpetrators while assisting the survivors and victims of sex slavery, sex trafficking, and the previous years of superficial globalization. Globalization must undo its good intentioned paving of the road to brothels, and replace it with meaningful actions.

i Asia Watch and the Women’s Rights Project, A Modern Form of Slavery: Trafficking of Burmese Women and Girls into Brothels in Thailand, (United States of America: Human Rights Watch, 1993), 1. ii Tong Chee Kiong and Lian Kwen Fee, “Cultural Knowledge, Nation-States, and the Limits of Globalization in Southeast Asia,” Shinji Yamashita and J.S. Eades, eds., Globalization in Southeast Asia: Local, National, and International Perspectives (New York:Berghahn Books, 2003), 45. iii Christien van den Anker, “Contemporary Slavery, Global Justice and Globalization,” Christien van den Anker, ed. The Political Economy of New Slavery, (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2004), 22. iv Anker, 22. v Shinji Yamashita, “Introduction: ‘Glocalizing’ Southeast Asia,” Shinji Yamashita and J.S. Eades, eds., Globalization in Southeast Asia: Local, National, and International Perspectives (New York:Berghahn Books, 2003), 4. vi Jayati Ghosh, “Globalization, Economic Restructuring, and the Implications for Democracy in Developing Countries,” Fahimul Quadir and Jayant Leleeds, Democracy and Civil Society in Asia: Volume 1: Globalization, Democracy and Civil Society in Asia (New York: Palgrave Macmillan Ltd, 2004), 30-34. vii Kiong and Fee, 46. viii Anker, 15-16. ix Ghosh, 32, 38. x Anker, 195. xi Anker, 192-193. xii Anker, 185. xiii Anan Ganjanapun, “Globalization and the Dynamics of Culture in Thailand,” Shinji Yamashita and J.S. Eades, eds., Globalization in Southeast Asia: Local, National, and Transnational Perspectives (New York: Berghahn Books, 2003), 126. xiv Yamashita, 1. xv Kevin Bales, “Because She Looks Like a Child,” in Global Woman ed. Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Russell Hochschild (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2002), 229. xvi Yamashita, 27-28. xvii Aihwa Ong, “Zones of New Sovereignty in Southeast Asia,” Richard Warren Perry and Bill Maurer, eds., Globalization Under Construction: Governmentality, Law, and Identity (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003), 39, 43. xviii Phil Marshall and Susu Thatun, “Miles Away: The Trouble with Prevention in the Greater Mekong Sub-region,” eds. Kamal Kempadoo with Jyoti Sanghera and Bandana Pattanaik, Trafficking and Prostitution Reconsidered: New Perspectives on Migration, Sex Work, and Human Rights (Colorado: Paradigm Publishers, 2005), 44. 57

xix Francis T. Miko, Trafficking in Women and Children: The United States and International Response,” Anna M. Troubnikoff, ed., Trafficking in Women and Children (New York: Nova Science Publishers, Inc., 2003), 4. xx Jan Aart Scholte, Globalization: a critical introduction (Great Britain: St. Martin’s Press, 2000), 8. xxi Yamashita, 8. xxii Amitav Archarya, “The Quest for Identity: International Relations of Southeast Asia (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 34-35. xxiii Louise Brown, Sex Slaves: The Trafficking of Women in Asia (London: Virago Press, 2000), 8. xxiv Alice Leuchtag, “Women Slaves of the Sex Trade”, ed. Gary E. McCuen, Modern Slavery and the Global Economy (Wisconsin: Gary E. McCuen Publications, Inc., 1998), 39. xxv Acharya, 83, 85-90, 98. xxvi Sietske Altink, Stolen Lives: Trading Women into Sex and Slavery (New York: Harington Park Press, 1995), 19. xxvii Jill Gay, “The ‘Patriotic’ Prostitute,” The Progressive 49, no. 2 (1985): 34. xxviii “Vietnam Online,” PBS, 2005, (Fall 2005). xxix “Vietnam Online,” PBS, 2005, (Fall 2005). xxx Gay, 34. xxxi Anthony Reid, Charting the Shape of Early Modern Southeast Asia (Bangkok: Silkworm Books, 1999), 188-189. xxxii Reid, 200. xxxiii Ronald Skeldon, “Trafficking: A Perspective from Asia,” eds. Reginald Appleyard and John Salt, Perspectives on Trafficking of Migrants (Switzerland: International Organization for Migration, 2000), 13. xxxiv Jan Boontinand, “Feminist Participatory Action Research in the Mekong Region,” eds. Kamal Kempadoo with Jyoti Sanghera and Bandana Pattanaik, Trafficking and Prostitution Reconsidered: New Perspectives on Migration, Sex Work, and Human Rights (Colorado: Paradigm Publishers, 2005), 178. xxxv Altink, 22-23, 56. xxxvi Altink, 19. xxxvii Wayan I. Geriya, “The Impact of Tourism in Three Tourist Villages in Bali,” Shinji Yamashita and J.S. Eades, eds., Globalization in Southeast Asia: Local, National, and Transnational Perspectives (New York: Berghahn Books, 2003), 81-83, 89. xxxviii Leuchtag, 39. xxxix Leuchtag, 39. xl Altink, 19. xli Michelle Kuo, “Asia’s Dirty Secret,” Harvard International Review (Summer 2000): 42. xlii Arts Watch and the Women’s Rights Project, 1, 14, 62. xliii Suzanne Miers, Slavery in the Twentieth Century: The Evolution of a Global Problem (California: Alta Mira Press, 2003), 433. xliv Altink, 20. xlv Brown, 183. xlvi Bales, 215. xlvii Brown, 11. xlviii Asia Watch and the Women’s Rights Project, 2-3. xlix Asia Watch and the Women’s Rights Project, 3. l Asia Watch and the Women’s Rights Project, 48-53. li Asia Watch and the Women’s Rights Project, 60. lii Leuchtag, 40. liii Brown, 170. liv Bales, 211-213. lv Bales, 212. lvi Leuchtag, 38. lvii Brown, 1, 3-4. lviii Bales, 209-211. 58

lix Kuo, 42. lx Brown, 9. lxi Anker, 92. lxii Altink, 5-8, 20. lxiii Asia Watch and the Women’s Rights Project, 47. lxiv Thomas Larsson, The Race to the Top: The Real Story of Globalization (Washington, D.C.: Cato Institute, 2001), 5-6. lxv Asia Watch and the Women’s Rights Project, 4. lxvi Asia Watch and the Women’s Rights Project, 71-73. lxvii Anker, 93-94. lxviii Brown, 7. lxix Bales, 215-216. lxx Bales, 220. lxxi Chris Beyrer, War in the Blood: Sex, Politics, and AIDS in Southeast Asia (New York: 2ed Books Ltd., 1998), 130. lxxii Marshall and Thatun, 46-48. lxxiii Bales, 213. lxxiv Brown, 183. lxxv Leuchtag, 39. lxxvi Kuo, 43. lxxvii Kuo, 43. lxxviii Asia Watch and the Women’s Rights Project, 3. lxxix Skeldon, 18. lxxx Anker, 16. lxxxi Asia Watch and the Women’s Rights Project, 21. lxxxii Anker, 17. lxxxiii Asia Watch and the Women’s Rights Project, 45. lxxxiv Brown, 187-188. lxxxv Brown, 186-187, 197-200. lxxxvi Miers, 392-396. lxxxvii Asia Watch and the Women’s Rights Project, 120-124. lxxxviii United Nations, 16. lxxxix Miers, 404, xc Miers, 398. xci Anker, 104-105. xcii Anker, 104. xciii Anker, 91. xciv Troubnikoff, 2-3,11-16. xcv Marshall and Thatun, 53. xcvi Nicholas D. Kristof, “Sex Slaves? Lock Up The Pimps,” New York Times, 29 January 2005, sec A. xcvii Nicholas D. Kristof, “Stopping the Traffickers,” “Cambodia, Where Sex Traffickers are King,” and “Sex Slaves? Lock Up The Pimps,” New York Times, 31 January 2004, 15 January 2005, 29 January 2005, sec A. xcviii Miers, 431-451. xcix Miers, 452. c Miers, 455. ci Ratna Kapur, “Cross-border Movements and the Law: Renegotiation the Boundaries of Difference,” eds. Kamal Kempadoo with Jyoti Sanghera and Bandana Pattanaik, Trafficking and Prostitution Reconsidered: New Perspectives on Migration, Sex Work, and Human Rights (Colorado: Paradigm Publishers, 2005), 26. cii Melissa Ditmore, “Trafficking in Lives: How Ideology Shapes Policy,” eds. Kamal Kempadoo with Jyoti Sanghera and Bandana Pattanaik, Trafficking and Prostitution Reconsidered: New Perspectives on Migration, Sex Work, and Human Rights (Colorado: Paradigm Publishers, 2005), 108-116. 59

ciii Altink, 4. civ United Nations General Assembly, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (10 December 1948). cv Asia Watch and the Women’s Rights Project, 53-54. cvi United Nations, Combating Human Trafficking in Asia: A Resource Guide to International and Regional Legal Instruments, Political Commitments and Recommended Practices (Thailand: United Nations Publication, 2003), 6. cvii United Nations, 6. cviii United Nations, 16. cix Asia Watch and the Women’s Rights Project, 23-24. cx Asia Watch and the Women’s Rights Project, 24. cxi Asia Watch and the Women’s Rights Project, 25. cxii Bales, 518-519. cxiii Asia Watch and the Women’s Rights Project, 28-29. cxiv Larsson, 6, 23-26, 91. cxv Brown, 205. cxvi Asia Watch and the Women’s Rights Project, 3-5. cxvii Skeldon, 21. cxviii Miko, 4. cxix Beyrer, 131. cxx Altink, 3. cxxi Brown, 194-196. cxxii Asia Watch and the Women’s Rights Project, 17-19. cxxiii Brown, 185. cxxiv Anna M. Troubnikoff ed., Trafficking in Women and Children (New York: Nova Science Publishers, Inc., 2003), 2-14 cxxv Kapur, 26. cxxvi Kuo, 44. cxxvii Marshall and Thatun, 44. cxxviii Marshall and Thatun, 45-60. cxxix Leuchtag, 39. cxxx Beyrer, 133. cxxxi Gay, 34-36. 60

Appendix 1

Selection of United Nations International Acts1

Name Also Know As Year Explanation Convention Against Palermo 2000 Convene group to study trafficking and consider further Transnational Organized Convention methods, Create methods against Organized Crimes, Crime Convention on the CEDAW 1979 Defines discrimination against women with agenda on Elimination of all forms national action, of Discrimination Against Women Convention on the Rights 1990 Outlines Rights of the Child, Recalls Universal of the Child Declaration of Human Rights, Child is below the age of 18, Convention on the 1949 Punish all who participate in prostitution of others, Suppression of the Extradition issues outlined, protect immigrants, Traffick in Person and of the Prostitution of Others International Covenant 1966 Outlines universal economic and political rights on Civil and Political Rights Prevention and 1997 Revised Version of Trafficking in Women and Girls; Suppression of Covers boys and girls under 18 years old; Increases Trafficking in Women penalties; and Children Act Protocol Against the 2004 Handles rights of migrants and reduce organized crime, Smuggling of Migrants Combat smuggling, by Land, Air, and Sea Protocol to Prevent, Trafficking 2000 Define trafficking, Assist returning children across Suppress, and Punish Protocol borders, Prohibit children for purposes of “commercial Trafficking in Persons, sexual exploitation of children,” Set up safeguards to Especially Women and ensure protection, Proportional criminal penalties, Children Ratifying states must establish national trafficking legislation, Supplement to Convention of Transnational Organized Crime, Slavery, Servitude, Slavery 1926 Define Slavery for convention, Identifies aspects of slave Forced Labor, and Convention of trade, Forced Labor, Similar Institutions and 1926 Practices Convention Supplementary 1957 Recognizes and works to abolish practices similar to Convention on the slavery, Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade Institutions, and Practices Similar to Slavery Universal Declaration of 1948 Clarifies list of rights and freedoms United Nations views Human Rights as applicable worldwide; Not legally binding

1 The United Nations website, 2000-2006, (Spring 2006). Information compiled from this and affiliated sites. 61

Appendix 2

Ratification and Signature of United Nations Acts by Southeast Asian States?2

Brunei Burma Cambodia Indonesia Laos Malaysia Philippines Singapore Thailand Vietnam Convention Against - - S, R S R S, R S, R S S S Transnational Organized Crime Convention on the - - S, R S, R S, R R S, R R R S, R Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women Convention on the R - R S, R R R S, R R R S, R Rights of the Child Convention on the - - - - R - S, R R - - Suppression of the Traffick in Person and of the Prostitution of Others International - - S, R R S - S, R - R R Covenant on Civil and Political Rights Protocol Against - - S, R S R - S, R - S - the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Air, and Sea Protocol to Prevent, - - S S R - S, R - S - Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children Slavery, Servitude, ------Forced Labor, and Similar Institutions and Practices Convention Supplementary - - R - R R R R - - Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade Institutions, and Practices Similar to Slavery R- Ratified S-Signed

2 The United Nations website, 2000-2006, (Spring 2006). Information compiled from this and affiliated sites. 62