Report highlights issues women, children facing

A REPORT has labelled the country a source, transit and destination for men, women and children subjected to sex trafficking and forced labour.
According to the 2018 Traffic in Persons Report on Papua New Guinea released by the US Embassy last Friday, foreign and local women and children were subjected to sex trafficking, domestic servitude, forced labour in the tourism sector and forced begging and street vending.
Children were reportedly subjected to sex trafficking or forced labour by members of their immediate family or tribe.
The report said parents forced children to beg or sell goods on the street and sell or force their daughters into marriages or child sex trafficking to settle debts or to support their families.
Marriages in PNG commonly involved a “bride price” of money or chattel paid to the wife’s family by the husband’s family; this is sometimes used as a debt to compel women to remain in abusive or servile marriages.
Young girls sold into polygamous marriages may be forced into domestic service for their husbands’ extended families or exploited in sex trafficking.
Within the country, children and women may be exploited with promises of legitimate work or education to travel to different provinces where they are subjected to sex trafficking or domestic servitude.
Tribal leaders reportedly trade with each other the exploitative labour and service of girls and women for guns and to forge political alliances.
Foreign-owned logging companies arrange for some foreign women to enter the country voluntarily with fraudulently issued tourist or business visas.
After their arrival, many of these women were turned over to traffickers who transported them to logging and mining camps, fisheries, and entertainment sites, and exploited them in forced prostitution and domestic servitude.