Young girls in Thailand are being smuggled across the border by gangs to work as prostitutes in Malaysia. Most of these girls were bought from their parents in Thailand by gangs or were recruited with lies about working as a housekeeper. Once in Malaysia the gangs sell the girls to Malaysian gangs who then distribute them to various entertainment places that offer sex services.
Recently a joint Thai-Malaysian police force conducted a raid and found thirty-seven girls locked up behind bars on the third floor of a Malaysian restaurant. The Coordinating Centre for the Prevention and Suppression of Prostitution and Child Labor estimates that two thousand girls and women are held as forced prostitutes in Malaysia. The suspects who run these rings are occasionally arrested when the police conduct raids, but are then only fined and released, and the prostitution rings are put right back into operation. There are rumors that the police corruption contributes to the difficulty of making a serious conviction stick against the people in charge of these forced prostitution rings.
