From AFP:
Authorities in military-ruled Myanmar, listed by Washington as among the world's worst human trafficking offenders, arrested a couple trying to smuggle four women to China, state media said Thursday.
In a rare acknowledgement of the problem, the Myanmar-language Mirror paper said the two [traffickers] were held as they tried to bring four women to board a train in the commercial hub Yangon to the border town of Muse. From there they would have been smuggled into China to work as maids, the newspaper quoted police as saying, and identified the couple.
The government admits women from Myanmar have been lured to China with the promise of good jobs but were instead sold and forced to marry older men. Myanmar made human trafficking illegal in September 2005, but in an annual report last year the United States accused the government of complicity in the smuggling of people to Bangladesh, China, Malaysia and Thailand. Among the reasons were sexual exploitation, domestic service and forced labour.
Myanmar sentenced 33 human traffickers to life in prison in February last year, while in 2006, Chinese and Myanmar police arrested 64 people for human trafficking.
United Nations Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking website www.ungift.org aims to be an extension of UN GIFT activities worldwide. We would like it to evolve into a vibrant online community where people exchange views, showcase their work, talk about their experiences and strengthen the fight against human trafficking. With your help we can make it a valuable resource and a tool to take this fight forward. The organized crime of human trafficking needs a fitting organized response.
ReplyDeleteUnited Nations Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking (UN.GIFT) was formally launched in London on 26 March 2007. It is designed to have a long-term impact to create a turning point in the worldwide fight against human trafficking. 27million people are trafficked each year. UN.GIFT intends to take action against human trafficking in all its manifestations – commercial sexual exploitation, bonded labour, organ trade, camel jockeying, forced marriages, domestic labour, illegal adoption, and other exploitative work – through creating partnerships at a global level with all sectors of society.
The ultimate goal of the Global Initiative is to contribute to ending human trafficking– estimated to have a total market value of about $32 billion worldwide. UNODC has a two-pronged strategy for achieving this goal – increasing public awareness of the problem and coordinating existing but disparate efforts by international and national groups, governments and non-governmental organizations and by concerned individuals to end the practice.
Numerous regional GIFT events will culminate in Vienna with a Global Forum against Human Trafficking from 13th to 15th Feb 2008.
The objective of The Vienna Forum is to raise awareness, facilitate cooperation and partnerships among the various stakeholders. It will bring together representatives from Member States, UN system organizations, other regional and international organizations, the business community, academia, non-governmental organizations and other elements of civil society. The Forum will allow for an open environment to enable all parties involved to take concrete steps to fight human trafficking, within their spheres of action.
The Forum will be a catalyst for solution-seeking ideas and address three overriding themes on human trafficking: 1.Vulnerability: why does human trafficking happen;
2. Impact: human and social consequences of human trafficking;
3. Action: innovative approaches to solving complex problems.
· It is time to join forces to prevent human trafficking.
· Give this global problem a global solution.
· Rally under the banner of the Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking.
· Get involved!
· Together we can save people and put traffickers behind bars.
Tushar