Human trafficking is a serious crime involving the deceiving or coercing of people into situations of severe exploitation. The Mekong region contains diverse patterns of human trafficking. They are internal and cross-border; highly organized and small-scale; for sex and labour; through both formal and informal recruitment mechanisms; and involve men, women, children and families.

This research is published by the United Nations Action for Cooperation against Trafficking in Persons (UN-ACT), a regional, UNDP-managed anti-trafficking project in the Greater Mekong Sub-region, as part of a series titled Human Trafficking Trends in Asia. The study draws on a dataset collected at the Wang Tao – Chong Mek border crossing in 2013 involving 128 deportees, and analyses their migration experiences including potential cases of human trafficking.

Some of the key findings include:

1. Of the 128 respondents, 4 cases met the criteria of being possibly trafficked (3.5 percent). All of these cases were males accounting for 6% of the male respondents;

2. The sector most affected by human trafficking was agriculture, with 40% of those engaged in such work classifying as possibly trafficked. However, given the small sample size, this only included two individuals;

3. Gender, age, education levels and knowledge about human trafficking appeared unrelated to whether or not a respondent was deceived/cheated, exploited, and trafficked;

4. The main vulnerability factor to human trafficking in this study was whether a respondent used a broker to get to the Lao-Thai border. Whilst only 15% used brokers for such purposes, these were significantly more likely to have negative experiences in Thailand.

The report contains an analysis of socio-economic factors and other variables going beyond migration and human trafficking, and concludes with a number of concise recommendations for action to anti-trafficking stakeholders.

With this research, UN-ACT hopes to help the counter-trafficking sector in Lao PDR and Thailand to find and assist more victims of human trafficking, bring more of their traffickers and abusers to justice, and prevent more vulnerable people from being deceived and exploited in the future.

Further resources on human trafficking in the Greater Mekong Sub-region can be accessed by visiting UN-ACT’s website at www.un-act.org.