In recent years, the child sex industry has expanded across Asia. "The situation is serious and it is ever-changing," says Vitit Muntarbhorn, professor of Law at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University and a longtime United Nations human rights special rapporteur.
      "There is a press-down-pop-up phenomenon: Even when the sexual exploitation is tackled effectively in one country, it may emerge insidiously in another country. Generally, there is a very big gap between policy and implementation."
      Adds David Feingold, international coordinator for HIV/AIDS and trafficking at UNESCO, "Compared to ten years ago, the trafficking in children for sex has worsened in Cambodia. But there are bright spots, like Thailand, where the situation has improved."
      Because sex with children is illegal and clandestine, no-one knows for sure how many are involved. However, Reader's Digest research estimates that close to a million children are involved in the sex trade across Asia.
      Three developments have led to this situation:
      Greater demand for child sex from Asian men. "They want those who have never had sex before and don't have HIV," says Somaly Mam, founder of AFESIP, a Phnom Penh-based organisation that rescues underage girls from sex slavery. New prosperity and mobility within the region mean that Asian men who want sex with children can have it.
      Indifference among lawmakers and enforcers. In most Asian countries, sex with a child under 16 years is a crime. So is employing anyone under 18 in the sex trade. However, "you cannot point to a single country where prosecution of the traffickers has reduced the over-all level of trafficking," say Feingold.
      Widespread corruption. Criminals responsible for the traffic in Asian children routinely buy off police officers, judges and lawmakers. "Crime bosses pay police more than the government pays them," says Sanphasit Koompraphant, director of the Bangkok-based Centre for the Protection of Children's Rights.

      In the past decade, war-ravaged Cambodia has become a popular destination for tourists. Among the 1.7 million arrivals there in 2006 were men from wealthier Asian countries such as China and South Korea seeking sex with children, according to child welfare activists.
      Some Asian men want sex with children, especially with the virgin ones, because they believe that it will bring them good health, long life, good luck and not infect them with HIV/AIDS. "They buy them younger, six to eight years old," explained AFESIP's Mam, whose organisation has rescued 3000 girls living in Cambodia over the past decade.
      A 2006 report by the US-based Asia Foundation estimates that almost 20,000 children are sexually exploited in Cambodia.
      Though Cambodian law mandates penalties of up to 20 years imprisonment for sex with children, few who profit from the trade are convicted. "The real cancer in Cambodia is the corrupt courts," explains Mu Sochua, a former Minister of Women's Affairs. If the offender is a foreigner, a $10,000 payment to the judge is usually enough to win acquittal, while local offenders can get away with a couple of hundred dollars. At the same time, offenders pay as little as $50 to the victim's family to withdraw any complaints.

      The victims are also getting younger in the Philippines, a country often cited as a haven for paedophiles.
      Jean Enriquez, executive director of the international non-government organisation Coalition Against Trafficking Women, told Reader's Digest, "A decade ago the youngest were 12. Now they are as young as nine."
     Paid-for sex with a minor is illegal in the Philippines. Yet, "it is commonly an initiation rite for young men," says Cecilia Flores-Oebanda, president of the Visayan Forum Foundation. The group's volunteers rescue children trafficked from the Philippine's impoverished southern islands.
     After Jaydee's* father died, the pretty 13-year-old took a job at a bar near the House of Representatives in Quezon City. One evening, she noticed a popular government official eyeing her. The next day, her fourteenth birthday, she was given what she thought was medicine. She passed out and when she woke up she was naked and lying in a strange bed. Next to her was the official's son. It was his birthday too, and Jaydee and her virginity were his birthday present.
     She was forcibly made to work again as a drug courier. Some weeks later, she jumped from a vehicle at a stoplight and ran for help. Now living in a girls' shelter, she is too frightened to go to the police. "I do not believe there is justice," she says.
     The Philippines National Plan of Action estimates that there are between 60,000 and 75,000 children involved in the sex trade. Non-governmental organisations have put the number closer to 100,000.
      The situation in Sri Lanka is equally deplorable. According to the non-government organisation End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes (ECPAT), magazines, websites and chat rooms exult the country as a haven for foreign paedophiles.
      Due to a crackdown by the Sri Lankan government and aid groups, male tourists no longer openly patrol beaches for children.
      However, the problem is far from solved. "Child sex tourists have gone under the radar to avoid the authorities," say Anil Raghuvanshi, the former deputy director of ECPAT who now works for Save the Children.
      A report on child sex tourism in Sri Lanka by South Asia Partnership International (SAPI) states that "managers of guesthouses provide tourists with anyone they require. The most wanted are young girls and boys."
      The first time, a child often earns about 500 rupees ($5) for themselves or their families, which is a lot, says Maureen Seneviratne, who runs Protecting Environment and Children Everywhere. The pimp, of course, gets more for trafficking the victim.
      SAPI reports that six sisters, with the approval of their drunkard father, sold their three brothers, including twins aged 15 and 16, to a Western paedophile who forced himself on them three times a day for a month.
      Seneviratne estimates that in the areas where her Colombo-based NGO works, up to 6000 children are being forced to work as prostitutes at any given time. Yet, in the recent years, few foreign paedophiles have been arrested and prosecuted.
      "Heavy sentences are served on convicted paedophiles," she says. "Often foreign paedophiles leave the country the moment they suspect they are being watched."

      In India, where daughters are often seen as a liability by their families, the US State Department estimates that up to 500,000 children under age 16 are exploited in the sex trade.
     "Parents are tricked into giving their children to traffickers. Uncles and brothers sell them," explains Roma Debabrata, who rescues child victims in New Delhi with STOP Trafficking and Oppression of Children and Women. "It is not being controlled."
     The New Delhi-based National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) reports that abusers in India face little risk of arrest: "Insufficient or inadequate laws, poor enforcement, ineffective penalties and minimal chances of prosecution all play a role in perpetuating trafficking."

     Pressed for a success story, experts cite Thailand, which now has laws protecting all children from exploitation. In reality, however, Thai children have received greater protection, while the traffic in children from neighbouring countries continues unabated.
     A front-line Thai police officer told Reader's Digest that the illegal traffic in children from Myanmar, Laos and China has doubled in the past five years.
    "Although Thailand has passed laws protecting all children, ethnic minorities and migrant communities are still considered most at risk," says Sompop Jantraka, who runs a centre for children at risk.
     As a result, predators can still "order girls like you order pizza."
     Notes Jurgen Thomas, AFESIP's representative in Bangkok, "Thailand is a transit country for trafficking." Ethnic Chinese syndicates linked to Malaysia and Singapore, for instance, export young girls from the Mekong region's poorer countries through Thailand to richer Asian neighbours, according to Thomas and other child welfare activists.

     In northern Thailand, Sompop Jantraka is demonstrating how communities can protect their children with Mekong Youth Net, a year-long training programme for young women from Myanmar, Cambodia, China, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam - all target countries for child traffickers. The girls then return home and teach villagers, schoolchildren and community leaders the hideous consequences of trafficking.
     One of them is Sunisa*, a bright 21-year-old from Vientiane, Laos. Trafficked to Thailand at 15 and sexually exploited for three years, she came to the programme last year. She is determined to help other girls avoid what happened to her.
     "I will tell them how they can be tricked," she says. "If a stranger approaches you, beware! You don't know the heart behind a strange face."
     "Three Ps and three Rs are the key elements in the fight against trafficking," says Saisuree Chutikul, a former Thai cabinet minister who now works as chairperson of the government's Sub-Committee on Combating Trafficking in Children and Women. The three Ps are prosecution, protection, and prevention; the three Rs are rescue, repatriation, and recovery.
      "Progress is uneven," says Saisuree. "Trafficking is transnational and we need more cooperation in the region."
      Adds Sompop, "Prevention at the origin is the key."
      Kong Bopha spent about a year on the streets of Phnom Penh. In March 1999, at age 17, she was arrested by police, who handed her over to AFESIP social workers. She was dejected, angry and anxious, and suffering from typhoid and colitis.
      After four years of counselling and learning to sew, she found a job in a Phnom Penh garment factory. In 2003, five years after her nightmare began, she married a young man from her home village.
      Her happy ending has not lessened her anger. "People like that brothel owner must be punished so that other girls will not have to go through what I did," Bopha says.

*Names changed to protect privacy