Sex Trafficking of Thai Women and the United States Asylum Law Response
![handle is hein.journals/geoimlj12 and id is 155 raw text is: SEX TRAFFICKING OF THAI WOMEN AND THE
UNITED STATES ASYLUM LAW RESPONSE
MAYA RAGHU*
INTRODUCTION
The sexual enslavement of women and children is a profitable global
enterprise.' The commercial exploitation of female sexuality operates in a
wide array of markets, whether through pornography, sex tourism, mail order
brides, or brothels. One large subset of this business is international sex
trafficking. International sex trafficking concerns women who are forced into
sexual slavery-women who are sold, kidnapped, tortured, or raped-and
are made to sexually service men for the profit of others.2 The international
traffic in women has been defined to include[] any 'situation[] where
women or girls cannot change the immediate conditions of their existence;
where, regardless of how they got into those conditions, they cannot get out;
and where they are subject to sexual violence and exploitation.' ,3 Interna-
tional sex trafficking thrives upon the powerlessness of women and girls to
change the conditions of their existence. Sex trafficking exploits this power
imbalance that exists both within developing countries and between develop-
ing and industrialized nations. Traffickers prey on women in developing
countries at the conjunction of various forms of oppression created by these
power disparities, namely gender, ethnicity, and poverty.
The prime conditions for trafficking arise when developing nations com-
mence the transformation of their economies, usually state-controlled and
agricultural, to export-oriented industrial societies. The countries of South-
east Asia in particular, which desire to emulate the explosive growth and
success of their newly industrialized neighbors, eagerly push the transition to
a market-based economy. The development policies however, while stimulat-
ing amazing rates of economic growth and industrialization, have served to
* B.A. Trinity University, 1995; J.D. Candidate, Georgetown University Law Center, May 1998. I
would like to thank my parents for their support and encouragement. In addition, I wish to thank Asha
Mathew and Gali Schaham, whose research in Thailand helped inspire this Note.
1. See Susan Ladika, Organized Crime Profits from Trafficking in Women, EU Vows Action, (visited
June 11, 1996) <http://www.sddt.com/fileslibrarywire/...es/06_96/DN96_06_1 1/DN96 06_11_ln.html>.
2. Some commentators distinguish women who choose to become sex workers, removing the element
of coercion. For a detailed discussion of the debate over recognizing prostitution as a profession or slavery,
see Carol H. Hauge, Prostitution of Women and International Human Rights Law: Transforming
Exploitation into Equality, 8 N.Y. INT'L. L. REV. 23 (1995).
3. Susan Feanne Toepfer & Bryan Stuart Wells, The Worldwide Market for Sex: A Review of
International and Regional Legal Prohibitions Regarding Trafficking in Women, 2 MicHl. J. GENDER & L.
83, 86 (1994).](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/geoimlj12&div=12&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Sex Trafficking of Thai Women and the United States Asylum Law Response
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