Korean companies’ role crucial in combating labor abuses in Asia

"David Knight, an international migration expert, says in combating this, Korean companies have a role to play."  

"“Companies may not be aware of human rights abuses in their supply chain and sometimes there is a gap between what they are told and what happens in practice,” said Knight, chief of Vietnam Mission for International Organization for Migration, in an interview with The Korea Herald in Seoul." 

"“But those companies are still responsible and held accountable for any breaches of human rights abuses through their supply chains.”"

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Korean companies’ role crucial in combating labor abuses in Asia:

Supply Chain Links to Slavery Highlighted

Supply Chain Links to Slavery Highlighted:

Congress to seek more transparency in human trafficking report | Reuters

Congress to seek more transparency in human trafficking report | Reuters:

European banks join drive to combat human trafficking using data - Business Insider

European banks join drive to combat human trafficking using data - Business Insider:

The fight against child sex trafficking in Cambodia is far from over - The Washington Post

"Holly Burkhalter [“A safer home for Cambodia’s little girls”] ...  contended that several factors, including international embarrassment from media coverage and U.S. diplomacy, have ended the “big business” of child sexual exploitation."

"I write to you from Svay Pak, a village outside Phnom Penh where our rescue team has worked with the Cambodian police for the past year and found a very different story ... "

Read HERE

The fight against child sex trafficking in Cambodia is far from over - The Washington Post:

Thailand’s Sex Trafficking Figures Suspect? - Asia Sentinel

Few issues in Thailand are as emotive as sex trafficking, which activists say is a growing problem despite the millions of dollars spent on tackling it each year.

At least 80,000 women and girls are supposedly trafficked into Thailand’s sex industry annually, some claim, with children as young as eight locked up in brothels and forced to service up to 20 men a day. Poor hilltribe families in the north are said to frequently sell their daughters into the flesh trade, seeing this as “a quick way to obtain material goods that designate social status.”

The problem, however, is that the figures simply don’t add up, nor do the horrifying, heart-wrenching stories stand up to scrutiny. Critics say anti-trafficking activists often have a “white savior complex,” are self-serving, routinely inflate statistics, deliberately conflate the separate issues of trafficking and prostitution, and in general do far more harm than good.

CONTINUE HERE:

Thailand’s Sex Trafficking Figures Suspect? - Asia Sentinel:

Special Report: Traffickers use abductions, prison ships to feed Asian slave trade | Reuters

"Testimonies from Bangladeshi and Rohingya survivors provide evidence of a shift in tactics in one of Asia’s busiest human-trafficking routes. In the past, evidence showed most people boarded smuggling boats voluntarily. Now people are being abducted or tricked and then taken to larger ships anchored in international waters just outside Bangladesh’s maritime boundary."

Read more:
Special Report: Traffickers use abductions, prison ships to feed Asian slave trade | Reuters:

Nepal's bogus orphan trade fuelled by rise in 'voluntourism' | Global development | The Guardian

Source: Global development | The Guardian

Like an increasing number of tourists visiting Nepal's mountain peaks, colourful markets and lush national parks, Marina Argeisa wanted to experience the latest must-do activity on the tourist trail: a volunteering stint at an orphanage.

Continue reading this article by Pete Pattisson here

http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/may/27/nepal-bogus-orphan-trade-voluntourism?CMP=fb_gu

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Army orders trafficking crackdown | Bangkok Post: news

Source:  Bangkok Post: news:

By Thanida Tansubhapol 

Stung by Thailand being downgraded in a major human trafficking report, the military has pledged to make the issue a high priority and will bring in stringent and comprehensive... 

Please credit and share this article with others using this link:http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/security/417892/army-orders-trafficking-crackdown. View our policies at http://goo.gl/9HgTd and http://goo.gl/ou6Ip. © Post Publishing PCL. All rights reserved.

Continue:
http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/security/417892/army-orders-trafficking-crackdown

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Cambodia Remains on US ‘Watch List’ for Human Trafficking

Source: VOA

“Endemic corruption at all levels of the Cambodian government continues to severely limit the ability of individual officials to make progress in holding traffickers accountable,” the report says.

Read the story:

http://www.voacambodia.com/content/cambodia-remains-on-us-watch-list-for-human-trafficking/1943046.html

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Lack of clear definitions on human trafficking in South Asia is hurting victims | WNN – Women News Network

Source:| WNN – Women News Network:

(WNN/IRIN) Jakarta, INDONESIA, SOUTHEAST ASIA: A 2012 UNODC – UN Office on Drugs and Crime report on human trafficking recorded more than 10,000 cases of trafficking in persons in South Asia, East Asia and the Pacific between 2007-2010, but it is unclear what the situation is today. Tens of thousands of people are vulnerable to being trafficked in Southeast Asia, with governments struggling to understand and respond collectively to the problem, say experts and government officials.

Continue:
http://womennewsnetwork.net/2013/05/07/definition-on-human-trafficking-south-asia/

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[East Asia Forum] Human trafficking in Asia going online | For Yap State Citizens

Source: [East Asia Forum] 

Authors: Alistair D. B. Cook and Caitríona H. Heinl, RSIS

Human traffickers have an increasing number of targets online in Southeast Asia. The ASEAN region has a growing population of over 600 million — and internet users have doubled. Technology-facilitated trafficking is more diffuse and adaptive than initially thought, but online tools can also be creatively employed to counter cross-border trafficking.

Continue:
http://concernedyapcitizens.wordpress.com/2014/05/03/east-asia-forum-human-trafficking-in-asia-going-online/

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Special Report - Flaws found in Thailand's human-trafficking crackdown - swissinfo.ch

Source:  swissinfo.ch



By Andrew R.C. Marshall and Amy Sawitta Lefevre

SATUN, Thailand (Reuters) - After a two-hour trek through swamp and jungle, Police Major
General Thatchai Pitaneelaboot halts in a trash-strewn clearing near
Thailand's remote border with Malaysia.

"This is it," he says, surveying the remains of a deserted camp on a hillside pressed flat by the weight of human bodies.


Continue:

http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/news/international/Special_Report_-_Flaws_found_in_Thailands_human-trafficking_crackdown.html?cid=38365296

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Authorities cannot go it alone in human trafficking fight: MP - Channel NewsAsia

Source: Channel NewsAsia


SINGAPORE: The authorities cannot go it alone in the fight against human trafficking.


MP Christopher de Souza, who plans to introduce a private member's Bill in Parliament on the Prevention of Human Trafficking, said he and a taskforce looking into this issue are happy to work alongside civil society and members of the public.


Singapore is one of many countries that have become a convenient point of transit and a destination for human trafficking.


Read here:


 http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/authorities-cannot-go-it/1058970.html

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Singapore steps up efforts vs trafficking from PH, et al | ABS-CBN News

Source:  ABS-CBN News

By Arlene Burgos, ABS-CBNnews.com

SINGAPORE – This city-state has begun a month-long consultation to secure feedback from stakeholders on an omnibus bill to curb trafficking-in-persons (TIP), which has seen women from countries such as the Philippines, Indonesia and China lured by the promise of higher wages, but end up having to do paid sex.

Continue reading Ariene Burgos' article here: 

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/global-filipino/03/22/14/singapore-steps-efforts-vs-trafficking-ph-et-al

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Hong Kong needs a dedicated anti-trafficking law | South China Morning Post

Source:  South China Morning Post:

In 2009, America's Trafficking in Persons Report, published by the State Department, downgraded Hong Kong from its Tier 1 status (fully compliant with the US trafficking legislation's minimum standards for prohibiting, punishing and eliminating severe forms of trafficking) to Tier 2 (not fully compliant, but making significant efforts), and the 2013 report, issued last June, reconfirmed that grading.

The latest report, moreover, described Hong Kong as a destination and transit territory for people "subjected to sex trafficking and forced labour", and Luis CdeBaca, who heads the department's human trafficking office, has pointed to recent cases of domestic helper abuse, as evidencing forced labour.

Read the full story here:

http://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1445245/hong-kong-needs-dedicated-anti-trafficking-law

A Reuters Exclusive: Trafficking abuse of Myanmar Rohingya spreads to Malaysia

Source:  Reuters:

Trafficked Rohingyas are now held in northern Malaysia where they are tortured to extort ransom from their families.

Read the report by  STUART GRUDGINGS
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/06/us-malaysia-rohingya-idUSBREA2504U20140306

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Rape and Human Trafficking -- Is This Burmese Democracy? | Azeem Ibrahim

Source: Huff Post - Politics

By Azeem Ibrahim 
Executive Chairman, The Scotland Institute
The world may be weary of stories of atrocities with constant accounts of man's inhumanity to man in the media. But recent events in Burma demand the attention and definitive action from the international community. A Thailand-based women's group has recently produced a report that documents more than 100 cases of rape being used as a weapon of war, mainly in the northeast of the country against ethnic and religious minorities.

Continue here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/azeem-ibrahim/rape-and-human-traffickin_b_4767823.html

Back Fighting Human Trafficking: The Role of the Private Sector

Source: CSR Asia

by Matt Friedman  matt.friedman@themekongclub.org

While most people think that human trafficking focuses primarily on women and girls being forced into the sex industry, this represents only about 25 percent of the total cases. The remaining 75 percent fall under the heading “forced labour.” Many of these victims are working in manufacturing supply chains, which begin at a grower or producer and end at a manufacturer or assembly plant, producing products purchased by consumers in the global retail market.


Read more:


http://csr-asia.com/csr-asia-weekly-news-detail.php?id=12345

Map Of Modern-Day Slavery - Business Insider

Source: Business Insider

John Saeki @JohnSaeki AFP graphics editor in Hong Kong

According to the new Global Slavery Index 
30 million people are subject to modern-day slavery. Saeki published this graphic.


Check out the graphic here:

http://www.businessinsider.com/map-of-modern-day-slavery-2013-10