"Trafficking consists of all acts involved in the recruitment or transportation of persons within or across borders, involving deception, coercion or force, debt bondage or fraud, for the purpose of placing persons in situations of abuse or exploitation, such as forced prostitution, slavery-like practices, battering or extreme cruelty, sweatshop labour or exploitative domestic services."

Trafficking in women and children has emerged as an issue of global concern in recent years: facilitated by porous borders and advanced communication technologies, it has become increasingly transnational in scope and highly lucrative. Unlike drugs or arms, women and children can be "sold" several times - they are commodities in a transnational business that generates billions of dollars and operates with impunity.

Trafficking victims may be sold, tricked, forced or otherwise coerced into situations from which they cannot escape. Many are forced to work in the sex industry, as prostitutes or in the pornography industry, others enter marriage contracts.

Violence is not always used. In some cases traffickers take advantage of the vulnerability of those caught in a situation in which they have no choice or perceive they have no choice (e.g. persons living illegally in a country).

Others leave their countries willingly in the hopes of a better life, but end up in situations where their health and safety are in danger because of their vulnerability in a foreign country.

Trafficking routes fluctuate according to local conditions or supply and demand factors. It is no longer adequate to say that victims are trafficked from poor countries to the wealthier ones. In many cases the 'direction' or 'flow' may appear illogical.

However, one must remember that it benefits the traffickers to keep their victims in a foreign environment where not only are they vulnerable for having entered a country illegally, but disadvantaged because of their ignorance of the law, culture and language of that country.

It is increasingly difficult to identify trends and patterns, as the following examples show.

Immigration controls at the Paraguay - Brazil border are extremely lax. Authorities do not request identification papers from unaccompanied children or from adults travelling with young children. It has been reported that while some children are being trafficked across this border from Paraguay to Brazil, others are being trafficked from Brazil into Paraguay.

Young women and girls are trafficked from Thailand to South Africa via Singapore, while children from several African nations are trafficked to South East Asia via South Africa.

Children are trafficked from China to work in the sex industry in Thailand, while children from Korea and Vietnam are trafficked to China.

There are unconfirmed reports of young Filipinas trafficked to unexpected locations such as Africa, Papua New Guinea and Guatemala. In the latter case, the ultimate destination is probably Canada or the USA.

Children may be trafficked within a country or they may be trafficked across national or international borders.

Trafficking within a country is less common than cross border
trafficking, yet the harm suffered by the children is no less than that suffered by the victims of cross border trafficking. It generally occurs from the rural to the urban areas; however, children may also be taken to touristic areas or areas dominated by workers away from home (oil fields, construction sites, truck stops, ports or military bases).

In addition, children who have been trafficked across borders may continue to be trafficked within the destination country to avoid detection.

Cross border trafficking can involve three countries: countries of origin (i.e. children are taken illegally from them); countries of destination (those that receive the trafficked children); and transit countries (not the final destination, but rather an entry point into another country or region).

Some countries can fall under all three categories. Guatemala, for example, can be considered a country of origin, as children have been trafficked to nearby Mexico or the United States. It is a country of destination for some children from El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua; and it is a transit country for others from these neighbouring Central American countries who are being trafficked to the United States.

The repatriation process can also traumatise a child who has been trafficked. Children who have been trafficked across borders and 'rescued' are often treated as criminals. They are considered to be in breach of the law in those countries which criminalise prostitution, and they are considered to be in breach of immigration laws for having entered a country illegally.

They may be subject to imprisonment or 'rehabilitation' before being sent back to their country of origin. There is also the possibility that once in their country of origin, they are again punished, this time according to the laws and policies of their own countries for emigrating illegally.

There is a need to apply immigration laws and policies more humanely in the case of trafficked children, as well as a need for international and regional agreements or cooperation.

The Indian law enforcement authorities wanted to return the Nepali victims to Nepal. The Nepalese government, however, was unwilling to accept responsibility for their return.

Since then, member nations of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) pledged to take coordinated efforts at the regional level to effectively address this problem.

The Convention on Preventing and Combating the Trafficking in Women and Children for Prostitution was signed in January 2002 at the Eleventh SAARC Summit.

The Convention seeks to facilitate cross-border collaboration by setting up a Regional Task Force which will look into not just the criminal but also the human aspects of trafficking by incorporating the care, treatment, repatriation and the reintegration of the victims.

In Nepal today, most government shelters, as well as NGO programmes for child victims of trafficking, provide counselling and medical care services. In India, the government has erected 80 protective homes to provide girls and women who are detained under the trafficking law with residential care, education, vocational training and psychological services.