Most trafficked women, kids from Philippines, Indonesia—ILO
By Jerry E. Esplanada, Philippine Daily Inquirer
January 3, 2012

 An undisclosed number of women and children from the Philippines and Indonesia continue to be trafficked into forced commercial sex in countries like China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Australia, according to the International Labor Organization (ILO).

In a report, the United Nations-attached agency also described as “high” the number of cases of forced labor of domestic workers trafficked from the two countries to Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong.

“In Japan and Australia, women (from the Asia Pacific region) have entered these countries legally under entertainment visas in the expectation of working in dance clubs, only to be forced into providing sexual services,” said the ILO, which is based in Geneva, Switzerland.

It noted that the “root causes of trafficking and irregular migration (of women and children) included poverty, indebtedness and limited educational and employment opportunities in their rural communities of origin, social exclusion and the lure of the big cities.”

According to the ILO, women and children from the Philippines and Indonesia were among an estimated 9.5 million victims of forced labor in the Asia Pacific region, which represents over three-fourths of the global total of 12.3 million victims.

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