Jeremy Seabrook
Travels in the Skin Trade: Tourism and the Sex Industry
(London: Pluto Press, 2001, 175pp.)

Currently in Thailand, there is a proliferation of brothels, drive-in motels, massage parlours, hotels, tea houses, night clubs, discotheques, hairdressing saloons, beauty shops, escort establishments, restaurants, even golf courses which act as fronts for backroom prostitution business.  read more »

Franciscans International
Handbook on Human Trafficking
(Geneva: Franciscans International, 2004, 40pp.)

This 40 page document can be downloaded from the website :
www.franciscansinternational.org in the section resources/publications.

The recent increase in the scope, intensity, and sophistication of crime around the world threatens the safety of citizens everywhere and hinders countries in their social, economic, and cultural development.  The dark side of globalization allows multinational criminal syndicates to broaden their range of operations from drug and arms sales to trafficking in human beings.  read more »

Human Rights Watch
Owed Justice: Thai Women Trafficked Into Debt in Japan
(New York: Human Rights Watch, 2000, 227pp.)

Human Rights Watch is an NGO known for its serious research into human rights violations in the spirit of its aim: "We stand with victims and activists to prevent discrimination, to uphold political freedom, to protect people from inhumane conduct in wartime, and to bring offenders to justice."  Human Rights Watch has a research section devoted to the way women are able to exercise universally-recognized human rights.  This study draws upon research, especially interviews, carried out by Human Rights Watch staff as well as drawing upon the research and experience of active Japanese NGOs and academic researchers.  read more »

Gargi Bhattacharyya
Traffick : The Illicit Movement of People and Things
(London: Pluto Press; 2005, 220pp.)

The moral of Gargi Bhattacharyya's study of the dark underside of globalization is set out clearly: "All accounts of progress rest on some untold human cost - the sacrifices of those whose labour transforms society but who do not enjoy the benefits of this transformation."   read more »

Okello Lucima
Protracted Conflict, Elusive Peace : Initiatives to End the Violence in Northern Uganda
(London: Conciliation Resources, 2002, 100pp.).

As Olara Otunnu, the Special Representative on children in armed conflict of the UN Secretary-General, has written "At the heart of this growing phenomenon of mass violence and social disintegration is a crisis of values.  Perhaps the most fundamental loss  a society can suffer is the collapse of its own value system.  Many societies exposed to protracted conflicts have seen their community values radically undermined if not shattered altogether.  This has given rise to an 'ethical vacuum,' a setting in which international standards are ignored with impunity and where local value systems have lost their way.  read more »

Jaya Sagade
Child Marriage in India : Socio-legal and Human Rights Dimensions
(New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005, 257pp.)

"There is a long road from the ideal set out in international human rights documents to the actual realization of the human rights of young girls especially in the context of child marriage. Achieving this goal would require fundamental changes in ideas and patterns of behaviour, as well as the establishment of mechanisms to monitor and enforce the relevant laws." writes Jaya Sagade, Vice-Principle of ILS Law College in Pune, India.  read more »

Stuart Rutherford
The Poor and Their Money
(New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000, 121 pp.)

The United Nations General Assembly has designated the year 2005 as the International Year of Microfinance.  Microfinance is an effort to deliver flexible, high-quality financial services - basically loans but also advice - on a sustainable basis to the very poor as a way of 'jump starting' efforts out of poverty.  However, as with many UN-designated years, the year is half over before anyone knows that it has started unless non-governmental organizations have a real interest to promote the Year.  "Years" are then turned into "UN Decades" as a year is often too short a time to make lasting progress on such issues as equality between women and men or the welfare of the child.  read more »

Jeremy Seabrook
Children of Other Worlds : Exploitation in the Global Market
(London: Pluto Press, 2001, 166pp.)

"There can be no task nobler than giving every child a better future…The children of the world are innocent, vulnerable and dependent.  They are also curious, active and full of hope.  Their time should be one of joy and peace, of playing, learning and growing.  Their future should be shaped in harmony and co-operation.  Their lives should mature, as they broaden their perspectives and gain new experiences."   World Declaration on the Survival, Protection and Development of Children, United Nations, New York,  30 September 1990  read more »