SAMANTHA TROUP | senior staff writer

Human trafficking, a modern-day form of slavery, forces an estimated one million children into prostitution a year, while this number varies depending on the source because illegal activities are often hard to track it is a fact of life that is hard to turn away from.

Some of these children and young people make the decision to become prostitutes themselves, while others have the decision thrust upon them.

On Tuesday, Susan Clark the director of the American Language and Culture Institute (ALCI) and Siroj Sorajjakool a professor of religion, psychology, and counseling at Loma Linda University put together a forum for students on Human Trafficking in Thailand.

This informative session insisted on making sure that students understand that there is something they can do to help stop trafficking and some of the psychological and cultural repercussions of a country’s massive sex trade.

The children and young girls who do ‘volunteer’ to become sex slaves often see it as a means to an end. Particularly, in Thailand where an estimated 450,000 Thai men visit prostitutes every day in a country of 65,068,149, this population estimate explicitly takes into account the effects of excess mortality due to AIDS.

Many of these girls turn to prostitution to pay for their education, a desperate bid to break their cycle of poverty by financially trying to support their families, but that more often than not leads to death thru AIDS.

“I was really surprised by how underground it is, but how everybody knows about it,” senior communication studies major Melissa Rankin said. “Everybody knows about it but it’s so hard to stop because you have to go in so many roundabout ways to get these girls into a better living situation and how much they’re willing to sacrifice for an education.”

Finding a way to help can be overwhelming for some because there is so much to do, so Clark prepared a booklet for the students who came to the forum about ways anyone can help eradicate human trafficking and sex slavery.

Although the Royal Thai government is now committed to wiping out child prostitution, it continues to flourish because prostitution now works under the guise of massage parlors and karaoke bars.

“I have a history of working in Asia, particularly in Thailand,” Clark said. “And I have a growing passion to be involved in helping the 27 million who are slaves in the world, especially when it comes to the area of prostitution and human trafficking,” Clark said.

The “Things you can do” offered at the forum are almost all actions that students can take from the general comfort of their living area; blogging, raising funds, volunteering, and becoming educated on the sex trade. Even just $10 a month can help stop child prostitution in Thailand by providing a month’s tuition for one teenager in grades 7 thru 12.

This can help give women and children in Thailand the “courage to choose self-dignity,” Sorajjakool said, by providing girls with the education and means to either avoid the sex trade altogether or get out of it, if they are already involved.