1. Those in the Sex Industry

So many girls are in this industry for different reasons. Even young college girls are willing to sell themselves in the evenings to have the money to pay tuition and go to college. Girls with ambition and dreams of better jobs and opportunities are often the prime targets of traffickers.

With the promise of a good-paying job, these young girls – some of them children – are tricked and essentially trapped in brothels and bars to work as sex slaves. They are ‘seasoned’ into believing that this is the best way for them to succeed, and thus this is their own decision.

Some are beaten if they refuse their captor’s commands and they suffer long-lasting physical and emotional trauma.

2. The Sexually Abused

In Asia, the young female is very vulnerable. The culture is such that sexual abuse takes place, but then is often hidden.

3. Child Brides

Among tribal groups marriage at 13 is not uncommon. Marrying an older man who can bring some source of money into the family and care for a young girl is often seen as advantageous by parents or relatives. The vulnerable female is forced or pressured into a marriage/sex with someone she does not love nor loves her. She is truly only an object of lust and a servant in a relationship where she will eventually be discarded–often with babies and/or young children.

4. Those Abused Physically or Emotionally

This is a child who is being abused by a parent (or often a step-parent) who does not want them.

5. Orphans

The children have no parents because of death, imprisonment, or causes that have resulted in the long-term separation of children from parents.

6. The Neglected or Abandoned

Many children who are not orphans are ‘practical orphans’ because their parents have abandoned them. Often in this culture, parents will leave their children with an aged, sickly, or very poor grandparent while they go to work in Bangkok. Ultimately, they do not want to be responsible for their child’s care.

7. Those in Poverty / Lack of Education

In remote or mountainous areas near the borders of two nations, refugees have fled neighboring countries and are extremely poor with no education opportunities for their children.

8. Young Mothers with Babies

A young woman becomes a mother as a result of rape or abuse, or because of having been manipulated by a man and then fully abandoned.