By: Crystal Busscher
5th hour

Sex Slaves

The Burmese government has committed serious abuses and blocked humanitarian aid to tens of thousands of displaced civilians since June 2011, in fighting in Burma's northern Kachin State, Human Rights Watch said. Some 75,000 ethnic Kachin displaced persons and refugees are in desperate need of food, medicine, and shelter, Human Rights Watch said. In Burma, the Burmese army have been attacking villages, razed homes, pillaged properties, and forcing the displacement of tens of thousands of people. The soldiers have threatened and also tortured civilians during interrogations and raped women. They also are forcing people even children as young as 14 years old to work in the mines. The Kachin civilians say that they are also forcing them to work on the front lines for the Burmese army, enduring torture, and being fired upon by the soldier.
Human Rights Watch traces the women and girls' cross-border transport and their confinement in illegal brothels throughout Thailand where they are forced to work off their debt, often with 100 percent interest, through what amounts to sexual servitude. In addition to debt bondage, the women and girls face a wide range of abuses, including illegal confinement; forced labor; rape; physical abuse; exposure to HIV/AIDS; and, in some cases, murder. The Burmese women and girls work ten to eighteen hours a day, twenty-five days a month with anywhere from 5-15 clients a day. Health care and birth control information are minimal. Most of the women and girls are interviewed were virgins when they entered Thailand; fifty to seventy percent of them were HIV positive when they left. Escape for the Burmese women and girls is virtually impossible. If they step outside the brothel, they risk physical punishment, retribution against their parents or other relatives for defaulting on a debt and/or