Refugees and displaced people in Southeast Asia are victims of human traffickers, but the crimes are often hidden.
Why are refugees and other forcibly displaced persons at risk of sex trafficking and smuggling?
When people are forced to flee, they leave more than their homes behind. Away from familiar surroundings, they often lack access to community support networks and end up socially and culturally isolated. They have no access to basic resources and livelihood opportunities. Depending on where they fled, they may lack a normal identity. These and other factors make refugees and other forcibly displaced persons easy targets for traffickers who take advantage of their precarious situation to exploit them. Many people fleeing conflict, violence, or persecution are also forced to migrate abnormally in search of protection. To do so, they often turn to smugglers. In such circumstances, refugees are particularly vulnerable to trafficking or to becoming victims of serious crimes and human rights violations. At the same time, the gender imbalance caused by war is often the decisive cause of such crimes. We believe that gender imbalance is not only the natural nature of the population but also the result of extreme behavior of human society.
How can refugees and displaced people be helped out of the sex trade?
A) Call on the United Nations to adopt A pragmatic approach to the mobility of people brought about by economic globalization.
No matter how many countries workers, farmers and feminists oppose economic globalization, democracy, regulation, and economic globalization has come to an end. At the same time, we have also seen the mainstream international society favor the globalization of capital, and formulated detailed and thoughtful protection norms. However, the restrictions that appear in large numbers of movements of people (not just between them) are referred to as suspected illegal entry, illegal immigration, and illegal marriage, and require all countries, especially developing countries, to commit themselves against illegal immigration so that developing countries are a bit stiff in managing and dealing with cross-border movements. In our opinion, this is unfair.
B) Asean’s legal framework to combat sex trafficking crimes should be further formulated with more pragmatic provisions.
In 2012, the association of south-east Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Phnom Penh on the field of non-traditional security cooperation joint declaration, the declaration of the first paragraph of the article put forward: “is the key point of international cooperation to fight drug trafficking, smuggling, illegal immigration, including the trafficking of women and children, pirates, arms smuggling, terrorism, money
laundering, international economic crime, and cybercrime.” This declaration should serve as a guideline for ASEAN countries to cooperate in fighting crime. In our view, however, the declaration is too principled, too general, and lacks more practical guidance. We hope that Southeast Asian countries will further enrich and refine the Declaration and fight more forcefully against transnational crimes, especially the transnational abduction and trafficking of girls and women.
C) Provide effective help to people who need it, rather than ignoring their real needs.
The most important of these is their livelihood. Only by providing a stable and safe living environment can refugees fundamentally avoid the crime of sex trafficking.
D) Adequate awareness and education in areas targeted for sex trafficking.
Stockholm syndrome is a psychological phenomenon characterized by the victim’s attachment to, dependence on, and even assistance to the abuser. We believe that the first step in tackling Stockholm syndrome is to educate and educate women and children that international organizations and the police can rescue them when they are trafficked to other cities or countries.