AFESIP International
Research Unit
&
IRSEA (Institute for Research on Southeast Asia)
CNRS French National Centre for Scientific Research
& University of Provence

are preparing an edited volume entitled:

The Trade in human beings for Sex
‘A general statement on prostitution and trafficked women and children within Continental Southeast Asia’

Edited by

Pierre Legros, Pierre Le Roux, Pierre Gazin, Emmanuel Dialma, Joseph Swingle, Didier Bertrand, Jean Baffie

To be published in Phnom Penh (Cambodia) in January 2005 by:

UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund)
&
UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes)


AFESIP is a Non-governmental Organisation (NGO) established in Cambodia in 1996. AFESIP has devoted its activities to fight trafficking in women and children for sex slavery, with the purpose of supporting and providing assistance to victims of trafficking.

AFESIP has increased its advocacy efforts, in order to conscientise government officials, by lobbying to policy makers in Cambodia, other Southeast Asian countries, and on an international level. Recently, a new interdisciplinary Research Unit, through an observatory, has been created and implemented with ongoing activities. This was a vision set forth by its
founders to scrutinize the evolution of the sex sector in Southeast Asia.

As a continuation of the project, the Research Unit has initiated work in collaboration with others institutions, national ones such as the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) through its Institute for Research on Southeast Asia (IRSEA), research unit 6571 of CNRS and of the University of Provence, and international ones such as UNICEF (United
Nations Children's Fund).

UNICEF decided to allocate funding towards AFESIP's research program with possibility of extension. This support will last throughout the year 2004.
In addition, UNICEF has proposed the publication in English of the first output of AFESIP's Research Unit. This book will be published by the beginning of the year 2005.

UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes) in Southeast Asia, another United Nations agency, is interested in the project and the topics to be brought up in this book. Therefore, it proposed to participate in the publishing of this book as co-publisher with UNICEF.

The book will be directed jointly by the AFESIP Research Unit and the French CNRS (IRSEA). IRSEA's director in France has agreed on a joint editing of this book with AFESIP. The book will be printed no later than January 2005.
Distribution will be international, through UNICEF and UNODC channels.
This book will be a collective one. Contributions are provided by international experts covering a number of topics, cultures, and areas of interest.

AFESIP has already established provincial offices in 10 Cambodian provinces, as well as in the southern part of Vietnam. These officers have gathered information on all subjects relevant to the topics studied and to AFESIP goals. Contrasting with the situation in Cambodia, in Thailand AFESIP has essentially a mobile team of investigators. In Vietnam, Cambodia and soon in Laos AFESIP has several rehabilitation centres that have welcomed thousand of victims of traffic and prostitution in the past years. All residential applications are recorded in our database system, as well as the results of interviews and surveys by AFESIP social workers and investigators, including data concerning victims passing through our drop-in centres in Phnom Penh and Ho-Chi-Minh-city, and data issued by the open clinic based in Phnom Penh. Additional surveys will be undertaken in January 2005 by either doctoral or post-doc students (this is based on collaborative efforts between AFESIP Research Unit and relevant universities or agronomic research centres). Additional surveys using questionnaires are undertaken on specific
topics and in specific areas, involving institutional partners at the national or international level.
In the whole this will provide original data. This data will be analysed. The Geographical Information System will be used to analyse mainly AFESIP data. Data from SPSS (a renowned statistical analyse software) may also be used. The final objective is to present all collected and analysed data in the volumes to be published as a series in the following years.


Beside the co-editors of the book:

Pierre Legros (parasitologist, AFESIP International Director, Cambodia),
Pierre Le Roux (social anthropologist, AFESIP Research Unit Director, Cambodia),
Pierre Gazin (medical doctor and parasitologist, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement-IRD, Marseilles, France),
Emmanuel Dialma (international relations and politics, AFESIP Campaign Director, Cambodia),
Joseph Swingle (statistician, AFESIP USA, assistant professor, Wellesley College, Boston, SA), Didier Bertrand (ethnopsychologist, IRD, France),
& Jean Baffie (sociologist, CNRS, IRSEA Director),

among the first contacted specialists are:

Vanessa Achilles (sociologist, UNESCO Consultant),
Mark Ashwill (social anthropologist, USA)
Juliet Bedford (social anthropologist, Oxford University, UK),
Marie-Eve Blanc (sociologist, University of Montréal, Canada),
Frédéric Bourdier (social anthropologist, IRD, Cambodia),
Therese Caouette (sociologist, UN consultant, USA),
Soizic Crochet (social anthropologist, Laboratoire d'ethnologie et sociologie comparatives, University Paris X-Nanterre, France),
Stéphane De Greef (Agronomic engineer, GIS specialist, AFESIP, Cambodia),
Robert K. Dentan (social anthropologist, State University of New York at Buffalo, USA),
David Feingold (Ophidian Research Institute, Bangkok),
Bernard Gay (social anthropologist, CNRS-IRSEA, France),
Maxime Guilmin (historian, University of Caen, France),
Aarti Kapoor (Barrister, AFESIP, Cambodia),
Bruno Maltoni (Consultant Professor, Sociology Department, Royal University of Phnom Penh, Cambodia),
Dominique Menguy (social anthropologist, UNESCO consultant, Laos),
Evelyne Micollier (social anthropologist, IRD, Paris, France),
Marie-Corinne Rodriguez (historian, University of Provence, Aix-en-Provence, France),
Sommai Chinnak (social anthropologist, Ubon Ratchathani University, Thailand),
Trinh Van Thao (sociologist, University of Provence, Aix-en-Provence, France),
Yuko Shimuta (sociologist, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan)...

Alain Testart (social anthropologist, Laboratoire d'Anthropologie Sociale, CNRS & Collège de France, France) will write a foreword focusing on relationships between slavery and trafficking in persons.

The aim of our first book is to present a general statement on the question of trafficking in persons for sex slavery, prostitution, and on local mentalities-which facilitate or hinder traffic and prostitution-for a part of continental Southeast Asia: Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, with
possible incursions through borders: Burma, Malaysia and China (To date AFESIP is working only in Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam but plans to expand its activities later) because the problem of trafficking in persons for sex in Southeast Asia, in Cambodia for instance, is broader than the country itself, extends beyond it, at least to the neighbouring countries, so the problem has to be studied with a regional scope, as recommended by Pierre Legros, Director and founder of AFESIP, and by Somaly Mam, co-founder and President, Prince of Asturias Award 1998 for International Cooperation.

It is important to take into consideration local mentalities concerning all topics under consideration, and all cultural and social aspects connected with the former. By ‘local’ we mean that we have to identify the different areas that could exist in a same country. It will help highlight the general situation in Southeast Asia, and the possible solutions.
We also try to include a diachronic picture of prostitution in four countries (Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia), covering the last 50 or even 100 years. This is possible thanks to the existing French and Thai archives.

Concerning Laos, the ‘Fonds Deuve’ (deposited at the Mémorial de Caen pour la Paix, in Normandie, France) covers the period 1945-1963, essentially made of police archives. Concerning Cambodia, we have identified several specialists able to undertake research in the rich national archives in order to connect the past and the present. Concerning Thailand and Vietnam we are in the process of locating specialists.

The book will be a practical one: It will consist of short articles (maximum 15 pages), in English, based on original research by relevant specialists.
It will use an interdisciplinary approach (law, politics, history, sociology, human geography, geographical data analysis, social anthropology, statistics, psychology).
This book will include contributions by French, English, American, Thai, Cambodian or Vietnamese scholars in order to try to cover the case of the Thai, Burmese, Malay, Viet, Lao and Khmer societies, that is, the majority of the population of these countries, specially in the national border areas, and the case of the Chinese diasporas, of the Muslim minorities, or any other relevant cultural or religious minority, in continental Southeast Asia.
Also, the book has to consider the question of prostitution among small ethnic minorities like the Akka, Lisu or Karen of Northern Thailand, or the extreme case of the Orang Asli of Northern Malaysia; such situations are useful for the purpose of comparison with the bulk of the population of these countries.
The book has to consider with the same interest what we can call ‘external traffic’ (for instance Burmese women immigrated to Thailand; Chinese women trafficked to Laos; Vietnamese women prostituted in Cambodia, Thailand or Malaysia), and what we call ‘internal traffic’ (for instance Khmer rural women trafficked to urban areas in Cambodia; Vietnamese rural women
trafficked to or working as prostitutes in Ho-Chi-Minh-City; women ... from ethnic minorities trafficked to the large cities of Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam or Laos; Thai-Isan women from the Northeast region working as prostitutes in any part of Thailand, specially in the South at the Malaysian border).
Finally, this book will present some analysed data collected by AFESIP's mission during the last period. New contributions to be submitted are welcome.

Regards
Dr. Pierre Le Roux


Research Unit Director
AFESIP International
Po Box 2089
Phnom Penh 3
Cambodia
Fax 855-23 884 123
www.afesip.org