Unfortunately, this does not mean there are no Thai women in the Japanese sex business any more. Other victims might be prevented from seeking help by employers and traffickers.

"We cannot conclude it is because the problem is solved. We have to conduct more studies, as it is probably the case that underground organisations have successfully found a way to prevent victims escaping for help," said Keiko Otsu, a founder and former director of the HELP shelter in Tokyo.

HELP is a private organisation providing assistance for victims of human trafficking, mostly foreign women, and their children born illegally in Japan. The organisation was established 20 years ago.

Otsu and other anti-trafficking activists from Japan joined a recent seminar in Bangkok with the National Human Rights Commission of Thailand (NHRC) and other Thai authorities working against the problem.

According to Otsu, over the past 20 years huge numbers of Thai women have been lured into the sex trade in Japan.

She said 4,151 adult victims and 1,053 child victims had gone to the HELP shelter in the 20 years since it was founded. The victims were foreigners from 42 countries, and the majority were Thais, of whom there were about 1,600 women and 600 girls.

The number peaked in 1991 when as many as 270 Thai women went to the shelter. In 1992, the number was 220, and the following year 210. The shelter had only 10 rooms to accommodate them all.

However, Otsu said the number had decreased to less than 10 in 2005, and this year no Thai victims had gone to the shelter so far.

NHRC member Naiyana Supa-pung said despite the alertness of the two countries' authorities and a new Japanese law aimed at suppressing human trafficking, it had yet to be convinced the problem is solved.

"We can't proclaim success because of the decreasing number of Thai victims going to the shelter. It doesn't exactly mean that no Thai women are going to Japan any more, as we still see Thais working in nightclubs and bars in Japan," she said.

Human trafficking, especially for the sex trade, is a serious problem in Japan. The underground business is run by local agents in many countries who lure victims and transport them to Japan, where receivers meet them. The victims are then put into the sex business in various cities.

Otsu, who is also a founder of the Japan Network Against Trafficking In Persons (JNATIP), said that, as soon as a trafficked woman arrived in Japan 10 years ago, the yakuza would force her to provide sex to pay off a false debt of about 3 million yen (Bt990,000). But nowadays the amount is hiked to as much as 6 million yen.

Yuriko Saito, an academic at Keisen University and another founder of JNATIP, said that during the economic crisis in Thailand in the late-1990s there had been more well-educated women lured into the sex trade in Japan because of the lack of jobs in Thailand.

"The Japanese media has rarely reported on the trafficking issue, so people think the problem is solved. Actually the problem still remains, but in a different form since Japan enforced a new law against trafficking in 2004," Saito said.

Nowadays, many victims are forced to marry Japanese men - who are also trafficking brokers - to make it easier to bypass the strict immigration process in Japan, Saito said. Most of these women are Thai and Indonesian.

Inevitably, the illegal trade in women leads to the additional problem of children born without legal rights.

According to JNATIP's research, many women had been sold and resold by several agents for years until they finally became the forced wives of Japanese men who were mostly unemployed or working in illegal jobs.

"They are set free from the sex trade but have to face violence from their husbands instead," Saito said.

Children born to couples whose marriage or relationship was unregistered lacked citizenship or nationality.

In Thailand, a new fund of Bt100 million has been established under the Social Development and Human Security Ministry to provide compensation to the victims of human trafficking. About eight women have been given compensation so far.

Chatrarat Kaewmorakot

The Nation