International Women's Day And The Scourge Of Child Trafficking And Prostitution

To gauge the progress made on the problem cited above, I took the report of DR. Cesar Chelaha made a decade ago, a New York based medical practitioner as well as winner of Press Club America Award on Human Rights, as a bench mark.

"In her 1997 report to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women called attention to the levels of state participation and complicity in the trafficking of women and children across borders. It was estimated that 4 million women and girls worldwide are bought and sold each year -- either into marriage, prostitution or slavery. Approximately 1 million children enter the sex trade every year. (Although most are girls; boys are also involved.) As many as 50,000 women and children from Asia, primarily from Indian subcontinent and Thailand, Indo-Chine , Latin America and Eastern Europe are brought to the United States and forced to work as prostitutes or servants. In the United States during the past two years, the government has prosecuted cases involving fewer than 300 victims. In other countries where this problem is frequent, the prosecution rate is even lower. Because of their often undocumented status, language deficiencies and lack of legal protection, kidnapped children are particularly vulnerable in the hands of smugglers or corrupt and heartless government officials. Also, according to UNICEF, 10,000 girls annually enter Thailand from neighboring countries and end up as sex workers. And between 5,000 and 7,000 each of Nepali and Bangladeshi girls are transported across the border to India each year and end up in commercial sex work in Mumbai, Bombay, Calcutta or New Delhi.