At least two hundred thousand women and children from South-East Asia are trafficked annually. This figure represents nearly one third of the global trafficking trade. This study reviews what is known about trafficking in the region and provides a thorough overview of the viewpoints that have been developed within South-East Asia. It also discusses problems faced in the fight against trafficking and highlights priority areas for the development and implementation of counter trafficking programmes and initiatives.

Human trafficking has become an issue of growing concern in South-East Asia over the past decade, and it is estimated that this region accounts for at least one-third of the global trafficking trade. This study looks at the history and extent of this problem, as well as the responses by countries in the region. It also considers the responses of receiving countries outside the region, including the United States where it is estimated that 30,000 south east Asian women and children are trafficked each year. Priority areas for the development and strengthening of counter-trafficking programmes and initiatives are discussed.

Since the signing of the UN Trafficking Protocol, anti-trafficking laws, policies and other initiatives have been implemented at the local, national and regional levels. These activities have received little scholarly attention. This volume aims to begin to fill this gap by documenting the micro-processes through which an anti-trafficking framework has been translated, implemented and resisted in mainland and island Southeast Asia. The detailed ethnographic accounts in this collection examine the everyday practices of the diverse range of actors involved in trafficking-like practices and in anti-trafficking initiatives. In demonstrating how the anti-trafficking framework has become influential – and even over-determining – in some border sites and yet remains mostly irrelevant in others, the chapters in this collection explore the complex connections between labour migration, migrant smuggling and human trafficking.

This book both considers labour migration in its totality, showing how the divide between illegal and legal migration is often blurred, and also examines how governmental and international measures to counter illegal migration are translated into action on the ground, and what impact on all kinds of migration they have in practice.

Trafficking in persons is a serious crime that affects the human rights, dignity and integrity of all its victims including women, men, and children in the Association of Southeast Asia Nation (ASEAN) region. ASEAN has made efforts to fight human trafficking through inter alia the establishment of regional counter-human trafficking laws and human rights bodies to establish best norms and practices for its member countries. Nevertheless, the International Labour Organization (ILO) recently declared that there are more than 11.7 million forced labor victims in the Asia-Pacific region encompassing the biggest concentration of forced labour victims in the world. This volume reviews the achievements and the deficiencies of ASEAN’s counter-human strategies at the national and regional level. It offers suggestions for the reform of ASEAN's anti-trafficking laws and for the creation of a regional anti-trafficking human rights body specialized in preventing human trafficking, promoting equal protection of all trafficking victims, and prosecuting human traffickers.