Burma

The people of Burma are in desperate need.

Since 1988, the Burmese government has been led by a despotic military with a history of human rights violations and abuses of ethnic minority people groups in Burma. The government has imprisoned many who have advocated freedom and responded violently to public demonstrations. Forced labor, human trafficking, child soldiers, and sexual violence are just a few of the ruling military's tactics used to control and oppress people who inhabit their own country.

Often without warning, the ruling military will invade the villages of minority peoples and burn them to the ground, making no distinction between combatants and civilians. Groups of internally displaced people groups (IDP's) have been forced to the jungles on the border of Burma and Thailand. To date, there are approximately 600,000 IDP's in Burma and over 1 million people who have fled to other countries for refuge as more than 3,200 villages have been burned by the Burmese army.

Though the atrocities the Burmese army has committed on its own people are great, it is often the children who suffer the most. Many children are orphaned in the attacks on their villages. The Burmese army forcibly recruits children as young as 12 to serve in the military. Young girls are raped and sold into sex slavery, and young boys are often used as minesweepers to walk in front of the Burmese army through minefields.

Thailand

Thailand has long been a source, transit, and destination country for human trafficking.

Women from Thailand and surrounding countries, including Burma, are brought to Thailand for sexual exploitation and sex tourism. Many as young as 13 years old are smuggled across borders and advertised to child sex tourists from across the world. Sex tourism remains a large part of the Thai economy, despite official denunciation from the government.

Some reports estimate over half a million girls under the age of 18 are coerced or sold into the sex trafficking industry in Thailand.

Human trafficking also affects men in Thailand, as they are often forced to work in sweatshops, commercial fisheries, farming, and construction.

Traffickers take advantage of vulnerable people groups including the poor, disenfranchised, and displaced people from Thailand and other nations and exploit them for financial gain. Poor, and often illiterate, men and women are victims of forced labor and sex trafficking because of their dire circumstances and lack of skills that can gain incomes.

Hope for Thailand and Burma

But there is hope for the displaced people of Burma and the exploited people of Thailand. Groups like Partners Relief and Development (Partners) and Asian Alliance International (AAI) are actively helping ethnic minority groups from Burma and exploited people in Thailand. Through medial care, trauma care, safe houses and many other ways, these groups meet the needs of the Burmese and Thai people.

Both Partners and AAI offer new hope to those in need through emergency care and sustainability (job and skill training) so that the oppressed and vulnerable people of Thailand and Burma can help themselves and their families. These groups need funds; they need people. This is why we are going: for hope.

The above information was gathered from the following websites:
Partners Relief and Development - http://partnersworld.org/usa/why-burma
Asian Alliance International - http://www.aaithailand.org/
The World Factbook - https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/bm.html
US Campaign for Burma - http://uscampaignforburma.org/learn-about-burma
Human Rights Watch - http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2006/12/20/burma-landmines-kill-maim-and-starve-civilians
Humantrafficking.org - http://www.humantrafficking.org/countries/thailand
US Department of Justice - http://www.justice.gov/criminal/ceos/sextour.html
International Labor Organization - http://www.ilo.org/global/About_the_ILO/Media_and_public_information/Broadcast_materials/Video_News_Release/lang--en/WCMS_074439/index.htm