Our Response

World Vision is responding by conducting awareness campaigns in southern Lao PDR designed to inform vulnerable communities about the dangers of unsafe migration and the risks of human trafficking. Special attention is paid to young people, especially girls, who are the most vulnerable. Training is also provided to village leadership groups to help them identify and reject traffickers who come through their villages.

What are the challenges?

Human Trafficking as defined by the UN means the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benef ts to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation includes sexual exploitation, forced labour, practices similar to slavery or the removal of organs.

Human Trafficking within and from Lao PDR occurs in a context of mass migration. In areas of high migration such as Savannakhet, up to 7% of the total population may be cross border migrants, especially to Thailand. Of all these migrants, a small percentage will disappear. It is feared, although it cannot be certain, that these migrants have fallen victim to severe trafficking situations resulting in slavery or death. A much larger but indeterminate percentage will experience undesired situations of exploitation such as hazardous working conditions or refused promised wages.

Those most affected by trafficking and most in danger are those in vulnerable social positions, particularly young women facing problems at home, or those without well-established cross-border networks of relatives and friends.

Research by World Vision into patterns of migration in villages close to the Thai border is making it easier to pinpoint the extent of trafficking. A total of 44% of parents whose children have left them admit they don’t know where they are. Of those who return home, half say the experience was terrible; 40% report being locked up and 13% report they were raped.

Young people are the most vulnerable category of migrants. Their motivations for migrating include a complex mix of aspirations for modernity, obligations to remit money to parents, which weigh particularly upon young women; and under-employment, lack of useful education, uncertainty of income and poverty in their home communities. Rural to urban migration within Lao PDR is driven by similar motivations and is creating increasing numbers of urban poor, an under-served population who are also at risk of trafficking.

World Vision is responding by conducting awareness campaigns in Savannakhet Province designed to inform vulnerable communities about the dangers of unsafe migration and the risks of human trafficking. Special attention is paid to young people, especially girls, who are the most vulnerable. Training is also provided to village leadership groups to help them identify and reject traffickers who come through their villages.