The document discusses human trafficking, which it defines as the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons through force, fraud or coercion for the purposes of sexual exploitation or forced labor. It provides details on human trafficking situations in Cambodia, Burma, Thailand and the United States, including statistics on numbers of trafficked individuals. It also discusses the physical and mental health impacts on trafficking victims and campaigns that have been established to help address the issue.

1. The Ugly Truth on HUMAN TRAFFICKING By: Celeste Gonzalez

2. HUMAN TRAFFICKING What is it? The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons:by the threat or use of kidnapping, force, fraud, deception or coercion, or by the giving or receiving of unlawful payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, and for the purpose of sexual exploitation or forced labor. Now let me break it down for you…

8. It is estimated that 20.2% of the country’s sex workers are the trafficked and of 20,829 sex workers in brothels, massage parlors, streets and nightclubs in 2003, 3.7% were children.

9. The reported ages of sex workers vary between 13 and 44 years old. The majority of sex workers are above 18; few of them are above age 27.

10. In March 1995, minors (aged 12 to 17 years old) comprised nearly 31% of prostituted persons in Phnom Penh and other 11 provinces.

12. The severe economic mismanagement of the military junta has resulted in a sharp increase in migration making women extremely vulnerable to trafficking for prostitution.

14. In Thailand, trafficking is a $500 billion annual business, which is 50%-60% of the government’s annual budget and more lucrative than the drug trade.

15. 50% of the prostituted women in Chiang Rai are Burmese. Thousands of indigenous Burmese women from Shan State in the north and from Keng Tung in Eastern Burma have been sold into brothels in Bangkok and throughout Thailand.

17. It is estimated that 14,500 to 17,500 people, primarily women and children, are trafficked in the US annually.

18. 244,000-Number of American children and youth estimated to be at risk of child sexual exploitation, including commercial exploitation, in 2000.

19. The average age of first involvement in prostitution is 12 to 14 years old.

22. One in three of Burma’s sex workers were infected with HIV in 2005.

23. South Asia is currently home to more than 2.5 million HIV-infected people, 95% of whom are from India.

24. About 300,000 women and children are trafficked across Asia each year, accelerating the spread of HIV/AIDS.

25. In Nepal, HIV prevalence among women in prostitution is 20%.

26. In South Africa it is 70.4%.

27. In Cambodia, 28.8% of women in prostitution are HIV infected.

29. STD’s, HIV/AIDS, pelvic pain, rectal trauma and urinary difficulties from working in the sex industry.

31. Depression, mood changes

32. Guilt and shame

33. Cultural shock from finding themselves in a strange country

34. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

35. Traumatic Bonding with the trafficker

36. Suicidal tendencies

37. Dissolution of trust and security

39. HUMAN TRAFFICKING Campaigns Against Human Trafficking.

40. Help End The War of Human Trafficking. Bring Them Home. HUMAN TRAFFICKING

42. Kelleher, Olivia. "Child traffickers 'well organised'" The Irish Times 19 May 2008: 5+. Print

43. Surdin, Ashley. "3 Americans Face Child-Sex Charges; Men Arrested in Cambodia Are the First Prosecuted Under Trafficking Initiative." The Washington Post 1 Sept. 2009, sec. A: A03

44. "Unwanted visitors; Child-sex tourism in South-East Asia." The Economist [Bangkok] 23 Aug. 2008.

45. Shin-who, Kang. "Kore's Cited as Source of Sex Trafficking." Korea Times 6 June 2008.

46. Gray, Laurence. "Tourism's ugly links to human trafficking." South China Morning Post 18 Dec. 2007: 13.

47. Doyle, Kevin. "Burma: Child prostitutes available at $100 a night: the human cost of junta's repression: Military officials profiting from sex industry as sleazy trade flourishes amid poverty and misrule, say international campaigners." The Guardian (London) - Final Edition 30 Oct. 2007: 19.