ASIA & PACIFIC
Large-scale prostitution has been identified in many countries in Asia. Trafficking of children is prevalent, as is brothel - based prostitution is more common. Organised crime is heavily involved in the commercial sexual exploitation of children. Child pornography, though less common, is also prevalent, particular in Japan.
Social and economic conditions in the region are the foundation from which the commercial exploitation of children grows. Despite recent economic gains, the vast majority of Asia's population lives close to the poverty line. Growing prosperity has thrown the difference between rich and poor into sharper relief, projection materialism and consumer values onto traditional ways of life.
The generally low status of girls and women and their limited opportunities for education and employment also leave them extremely vulnerable to sexual exploitation. Girls are valued so little in Asia that sex-selective abortions and female infanticide are practised in a few countries; in others, they are perceived as little more than sexual commodities. Sexual exploitation of children, specially adolescents, through prostitution is common.
The growth in sex tourism in the last few decades is another contributing factor. Asia has been marketed as a key destination, a sex 'haven' for business and vacation travellers. Hard-pressed economies in the region have come to value the foreign exchange brought in by such tourism.
Wars in the region over the past several decades have also disrupted economies and traditional social patterns. The stationing of military troops concentrated large numbers of single men in some areas, another factor in the growth of the commercial sexual exploitation of children.
Data studies
Trafficking is prevalent in the Mekong region extending through Cambodia, the Lao People's Democratic Republic, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, and in the southern Chinese province of Yunnan. In these areas the children of ethnic minorities, already marginalized by their language, culture, and extreme poverty, are especially at risk.
Child prostitution is increasing in Bangladesh. According to a March 1996 Dhaka Star report, there are now 5,000 children in prostitution in Dhaka alone. About 2,000 are working in licensed brothels, the rest on the streets. A number of Bangladeshi girls are being trafficked to India and Pakistan.
In Cambodia, mass killings and the deliberate destruction of most political and social instructions - including the family in the 1970s, together with severe conflict spanning the 1970s and 1980s, left the country vulnerable to an increase in commercial sexual exploitation.
According to UNICEF - supported surveys in Cambodia in 1995, there were 10,000 to 15,000 prostitutes in Phnom Penh. At least one third of the total were found to be under eighteen. Many of those surveyed reported being deceived or sold into prostitution by people known to them, including family and neighbours.
Data on China is scarce, though eyewitness accounts and anecdotes suggest a resurgence of a long-dormant commercial sex industry following economic liberalisation in the 1980s. In 1994, the People's Daily reported that more than 10,000 women and children are abducted and sold each year in Sichuan Province alone.
Major cities in India, such as Bangalore, Bombay, Calcutta, Delhi, Hyderabad and Madras, have an estimated 100,000 prostitutes, of whom some 20-30 per cent are children, according to the 1993 survey by the Central Welfare Board. The vast majority are Indian (94 per cent); 2.6 per cent are Nepalese and 2.7 per cent Bangladeshi. The sex exploiters are mostly men who frequent brothels. The devadasi system practised in a few parts of India is a contributing factor in the commercial sexual exploitation of children. Girls, usually of lower caste, are 'dedicated' to a temple, where they are sexually exploited. Many of the girls in later years have little option but to enter brothels. Even though outlawed, it is reported that about 5,000 girls are forced into this form of sexual exploitation every year.
Trafficking is an important aspect of the industry in India, with girls transported into the country from Bangladesh, Bhutan , Nepal and Sri Lanka. Between 5,000 and 7,000 girls are reportedly trafficked from Nepal alone to India every year. India is also a centre from which girls are exported for a fee as 'brides', usually to rich older men in parts of the Middle East.
In January 1995, the director of Prostitutes Rehabilitation in the Ministry of Social Affairs estimated that 60 per cent of the 71,281 registered prostitutes in Indonesia were between 15 and 20 years of age. In recent years, sexual exploitation of children on the streets has increased, as has sex tourism.
Sex tours from Japan to nearby Philippines, Taiwan and Thailand are increasing, as is the trafficking of women from these countries - and in recent years from Eastern Europe and Latin America - into Japan for prostitution.
The Philippines has between 60,000 and 100,000 child prostitutes - the lower figure is from End Child Prostitution in Asian Tourism (ESPAT), and the higher figure was quoted in Asia week. Most of them are street children, who constitute 35 per cent of the total number of prostitutes, according to the NGO Women's Development Association. Tourists and military troops are believed to have constituted about 40 per cent of the sex exploiters in the decade.
Press reports from Sri Lanka associate the rapid growth of tourism in the country during the 1970 with the increase in the sexual exploitation of children, most of whom are boys exploited by male visitors at the island's beach resorts. ECPAT estimates some 20,000 boys are exploited as prostitutes in these locations. 30,000 child prostitutes in the country as a whole. The NGO PEACE (Protecting the Environment and Children Everywhere) cites a figure of 10,000 girls sexually exploited in brothels.
In Taiwan, between 40,000 and 60,000 children are exploited in prostitution by local men and visiting Asian businessmen, according to ECPAT. The local industry has a long history, and Taiwan has been a destination for Japanese sex tourists for decades. A significant number of young sex workers are culturally and economically marginalized aboriginal girls, according to ECPAT.
The sex industry in Thailand is believed to generate about $1.5 billion every year, according to studies by Thammasat University in Bangkok. Estimates of the number of child prostitutes in the country diverge widely, ranging from 15,000 cited by the Ministry of Public Health, to 30,000 to 40,000 cited by the Thai Red Cross, to 200,000 cited by ECPAT and the Thai police (this latter figure includes girls from neighbouring countries). The country has long had a large domestic sex industry which has expanded since the 1950s. More recently, the industry has grown as a result of the large numbers of business and vacation travellers seeking sex.
Asia Watch estimates that 10,000 women and girls from Myanmar are trafficked into Thailand annually. Others come from Cambodia, the Lao People's Democratic Republic and Vietnam. While many are kept in Thailand, large numbers are reportedly 're-exported', along with local Thai girls, to other Asian cities. Some (from the Yunnan Province of China) are taken to Malaysia and Singapore, others to Australia, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, Taiwan and the United States, according to the Centre for Protection of Children's Rights.
The increase in child prostitution in Vietnam in the last few years has been linked to the recent economic liberalisation, an increase in business and vacation travellers and the lifting of restrictions on sex-related entertainment. A survey in 1992 by the Women's Union said there are 60,000 prostitutes of whom 63 per cent are under the age of 16 years. Child workers in Asia, and NGO's, estimate that girls under 18 account for one in five of the country's prostitutes.
PACIFIC
Australia and New Zealand have often been cited as prime sources of sex tourists into Asia, and these two countries have been active in the review and introduction of extraterritorial legislation and public awareness campaigns targeted at travellers within the region. In the last two years, Australia has been looking at the domestic sexual exploitation of children, following a number of cases of children being sold into sex by those responsible for their welfare in social services. The activity of Australian diplomats overseas has also been in the spotlight.
Data studies
Police raids in Australia often discover under-age children working in prostitution. Recent raids in Sydney found girls of 14 and 15 years of age working in brothels of the Kings Cross area. Young women from the Philippines and Thailand are increasingly found soliciting on the streets.
A Royal Commission covering sexual exploitation and abuse of children in care was announced in 1996 in New South Wales.
Some under-age prostitutes have been found soliciting on the streets of New Zealand. Asian women now predominate in many of the bars in the red-light districts.
With tourism increasing, some Pacific Islands have noted a demand for young girls. Informal child prostitution has been found on a small scale in Papua New Guinea.
