ABC Radio Australia
The global financial crisis has decimated stock markets and pushed banks to the brink of collapse, but the UN thinks the flow-on affects in Asia could be a rise in human trafficking.
With factories closing down and people becoming more desperate for work, experts are concerned that human traffickers may take advantage of people's financial vulnerability. So the UN has launched a new project to prepare countries in the Mekong region for the dangers of trafficking amidst the Great Recession.
Presenter: Liam Cochrane
Speakers: Matthew Friedman, regional director of the UN project on human trafficking in the Mekong sub-region; Zoé Bake-Paterson is the campaigns officer for the Global Alliance Against Trafficking in Women
COCHRANE: The German government has granted 170-thousand-US-dollars for a study into how the global recession could affect human trafficking in Southeast Asia and what countries might be able to do to stop the situation getting worse.
The project will be run by UN Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking in the Greater Mekong Sub-Region.
Matthew Friedman is the regional director.
FRIEDMAN: I think what we're seeing in all the countries that we work in - which is Vietnam, China, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Burma - that all of these countries are being affected. Not necessarily all in the same way but there are large numbers of people who are either losing their jobs or companies closing down, or they were overseas and now they're coming back which means remitances dry up. And so we're seeing a large number of people with a variety of different circumstances.
COCHRANE: As consumers in the developed world cut their spending, retailers are cancelling orders for garments and manufactured goods, which means factories closing and people out of work.
Cambodia's garment sector has been hit hard, with orders down by 40 per cent for January and February, and an estimated 50,000 workers have been sacked.
Mr Friedman says this makes people more willing to take risks in order to support themselves and their families.
FRIEDMAN: So in the past maybe there were three people looking for one job, now there's 30 people looking for one job... and that sense of desperation for people basically saying, 'Ok I don't care, I'll do whatever I need to do in order to get this', leads to the possibility of exploitation and/or trafficking down the line.
COCHRANE: The potential victims are not just for those trafficked for sexual exploitation but for a range of unregulated labour.
Zoé Bake-Paterson is the campaigns officer for the Global Alliance Against Trafficking in Women, based in Bangkok.
BAKE-PATERSON: Sexual exploitation really carries much of the limelight but from the information we see on a daily basis, its trafficking to factory work, to agriculture and definitely to fishing across Asia and the Pacific are far more likely.
COCHRANE: Zoé Bake-Paterson says unofficial migration can also be a risk for those desperate for work.
BAKE-PATERSON: During time of economic instability, migration often increases around Asia and a lot of people will turn to underground opportunities for this, going through, migration brokers, family members or even organized crime to help them travel to new areas where jobs are available.
COCHRANE: The UN project will try to identify hotspots around the Mekong region and Matthew Friedman say he expects they will find new groups of people becoming vulnerable to human trafficking.
FRIEDMAN: I think you're going to see new demographics being effected. You had, for a long time, a certain amount of stability within migratory processes within the region. Now all of a sudden the rules have changed, you have large groups of people displaced, you have people coming back. For the exploiters, the traffickers themselves, the possibility of them recruiting is so much easier because there's so much of a pool that's available.
With factories closing down and people becoming more desperate for work, experts are concerned that human traffickers may take advantage of people's financial vulnerability. So the UN has launched a new project to prepare countries in the Mekong region for the dangers of trafficking amidst the Great Recession.
Presenter: Liam Cochrane
Speakers: Matthew Friedman, regional director of the UN project on human trafficking in the Mekong sub-region; Zoé Bake-Paterson is the campaigns officer for the Global Alliance Against Trafficking in Women
COCHRANE: The German government has granted 170-thousand-US-dollars for a study into how the global recession could affect human trafficking in Southeast Asia and what countries might be able to do to stop the situation getting worse.
The project will be run by UN Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking in the Greater Mekong Sub-Region.
Matthew Friedman is the regional director.
FRIEDMAN: I think what we're seeing in all the countries that we work in - which is Vietnam, China, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Burma - that all of these countries are being affected. Not necessarily all in the same way but there are large numbers of people who are either losing their jobs or companies closing down, or they were overseas and now they're coming back which means remitances dry up. And so we're seeing a large number of people with a variety of different circumstances.
COCHRANE: As consumers in the developed world cut their spending, retailers are cancelling orders for garments and manufactured goods, which means factories closing and people out of work.
Cambodia's garment sector has been hit hard, with orders down by 40 per cent for January and February, and an estimated 50,000 workers have been sacked.
Mr Friedman says this makes people more willing to take risks in order to support themselves and their families.
FRIEDMAN: So in the past maybe there were three people looking for one job, now there's 30 people looking for one job... and that sense of desperation for people basically saying, 'Ok I don't care, I'll do whatever I need to do in order to get this', leads to the possibility of exploitation and/or trafficking down the line.
COCHRANE: The potential victims are not just for those trafficked for sexual exploitation but for a range of unregulated labour.
Zoé Bake-Paterson is the campaigns officer for the Global Alliance Against Trafficking in Women, based in Bangkok.
BAKE-PATERSON: Sexual exploitation really carries much of the limelight but from the information we see on a daily basis, its trafficking to factory work, to agriculture and definitely to fishing across Asia and the Pacific are far more likely.
COCHRANE: Zoé Bake-Paterson says unofficial migration can also be a risk for those desperate for work.
BAKE-PATERSON: During time of economic instability, migration often increases around Asia and a lot of people will turn to underground opportunities for this, going through, migration brokers, family members or even organized crime to help them travel to new areas where jobs are available.
COCHRANE: The UN project will try to identify hotspots around the Mekong region and Matthew Friedman say he expects they will find new groups of people becoming vulnerable to human trafficking.
FRIEDMAN: I think you're going to see new demographics being effected. You had, for a long time, a certain amount of stability within migratory processes within the region. Now all of a sudden the rules have changed, you have large groups of people displaced, you have people coming back. For the exploiters, the traffickers themselves, the possibility of them recruiting is so much easier because there's so much of a pool that's available.
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