The modern slave trade : trafficking in women and children in the Mekong Sub-region?

Abstract: There are many different ways to study trafficking and I have chosen to do it from three different angles. First, I ask myself which role does globalization play when it comes to trafficking? The globalization has affected the countries in the Mekong Sub-region in different ways. Thailand is the one country where the globalization has come the furthest, with the globalization of both the economy and politics. This can be because they have a different political structure than the other countries in the region. The second group consists of China and Vietnam, which just very recently have started to open up their economies, and changed their tourism policies - both aspects that affect trafficking a great deal. The last group is Myanmar, Laos PDR and Cambodia; these are countries that have started to change both their political and economical structures. The second angle that I use is to look at how the situation is in the different countries and what is trafficking? The trafficking takes different forms in the different countries, and here I divide the countries into three different categories; sending, transiting and receiving countries. Once again Thailand stands out alone, but this time closely followed by Cambodia. These countries are mainly receiving and transiting countries, where Thailand often is the final destination or the transit out to the rest of the world. All the other countries also receive girls, but not as many as are being trafficked out from them, therefore they are being categorized as sending countries. The final problem that I analyze is how does the legislations work in the region, when it comes to protecting the women and girls? The two countries that have come the furthest when it comes to protecting the women and children are Thailand and Cambodia. Even if there is still much to do, these two countries have implemented very strict legislations to get a hold of the problem with trafficking and prostitution of women and girls. The two other countries whose legislations I have been able to find are Vietnam and China. They have just very recently started to acknowledge the problem with trafficking and that is why they have not come very far when it comes to changing the legislations. This research should be seen as a way to try to see what different factors there are that have an effect on trafficking in women and children. But it could also be seen as a form of guide lines for the other countries in the Mekong Sub-region (because of how the situation has been in Thailand) so that they can act faster and harder against the problem, and know what effects their actions will have.