Is ASEAN Failing to Protect Asian Children?

The collection of Southeast Asian countries known as ASEAN has, collectively, some of the most prolific child trafficking in the world. Why are Southeast Asian children so much more vulnerable to forced prostitution, slave labor, domestic servitude, and other forms of exploitation? Possibly, because ASEAN is failing to properly address the problem.

ASEAN includes the countries of Brunei, Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. They formed this regional coalition with the aim of promoting political security, trade, and economic prosperity, and common social and cultural values. And since ASEAN countries have some of the worst human trafficking problems in the world, that issue has long been high on their to-do list. But somehow, it’s still not done.

The problem, critics claim, is that ASEAN defines human trafficking too narrowly, and misses the deep integration trafficking has with migration. In fact, ASEAN has separated the issues of migration and human trafficking, which according to Phil Robertson, Director of the Asia Division for Human Rights Watch, “reveals a lack of understanding about the problem.” He also said that if the State Department ranked regions on anti-trafficking initiatives, the ASEAN countries would probably flunk. Ouch. But it’s true that whatever ASEAN is doing, it’s not enough.

The member countries aren’t doing much better individually than they are collectively. Singapore, for example, still views human trafficking as only sex trafficking, and may be failing to help thousands of people enslaved in non-sexual industries because of it. Thailand and Cambodia are struggling with massive amounts of child sex tourism, in addition to other forms of trafficking. And Burma, well, when the government is complicit in human trafficking you know you’ve got a problem. Then again, that happens in the U.S. too.

While human trafficking affects adult men and women in Southeast Asia, it’s children who often bear the brunt of modern-day slavery. They are young boys enslaved on Thai or Malaysian fishing boats or young girls in brothels in Vietnam and Singapore. They are children forced to work as domestic servants in private homes, as harvesters on rice paddies and tea farms, as beggars or thieves, and in dozens of other industries. And while the U.S. and Europe and ASEAN can argue for days about the classification of human trafficking or its exact relationship to voluntary migration, it all comes down to those children.

Because it’s not just ASEAN who has failed them. It’s all of us. –Amanda Kloer