In Southeast Asia, 1.5% of the total female population is engaged in prostitution, and the sex industry accounts for between 2% and 14% of the countries' gross domestic product (GDP). Prostitution provides significantly higher earnings than any other form of unskilled labor.
Large numbers of women engaged in prostitution began as minors having been tricked or coerced into such by parents, traffickers, partners and pimps. Along with being manipulated as children, poverty is the primary economic incentive that drives women to participate in prostitution, whether directly, or through following the false promises of employment offered by sex traffickers.It is estimated that ninety percent of prostitution is controlled by pimps, who receive between fifty and one hundred percent of the revenue generated.
The International Labor Organization reports that in Thailand "close to US$300 million is transferred annually to rural families by women working in the sex sector, a sum that exceeds the budgets of government-funded development programmes". The sex industry is so big in Southeast Asia it is termed COMMERCIAL.
These women are often abused, treated as commodities and traded, bartered and sold, for something that is sacred. And who are the men that create this raging sex demand? Predominantly, Americans.