UN Urges Asia to Increase Refugee Quotas

For the first time, the UN Office of Drugs and Crime or UNODC, has tried to paint a picture of transnational crime across East Asia. It looks at the illegal trade in narcotics, people smuggling, environmental products including wildlife, timber and dangerous waste plus counterfeit goods and fake medicines.

It's not a pretty picture but its worth a pretty penny -- almost 90 billion dollars a year.

“Essentially what you're talking about is a state separate from the states within the region, with immense power to dictate certain economic activity,” says Jeremy Douglas, the UNODC's Regional Representative based in Bangkok.

The largest market in terms of dollar value is the smuggling of counterfeit goods and illegal wood products.....together amounting to almost 42 billion dollars.

In comparison, the value of trafficking women and children for the sex trade is small -- just 180 million dollars, but the misery is immense.

The report finds Asian sex tourists outnumber their Western counterparts.

And in Cambodia and Thailand alone, where data is hard to come by, there are estimated to be over 4-thousand victims of trafficking.

Dr Sandeep Chawla the Deputy Executive Director of the UNODC says the problem isn't acknowledged sufficiently.

“The problem is certainly one which one generates a lot of public anxiety and two, is something which needs to be looked at because in terms of money, in terms of an economic impact as this report shows it's not very significant. In terms of damage to victims, it's one of the worst imaginable things,” as Chawla explains.

To combat people smuggling and illegal migration the report recommends increasing refugee quotas. Or in those nations where there is no refugee policy, introducing them.

It says on average 6-thousand people pay people smugglers for passage to Australia each year -- netting the smugglers 85-million dollars.

Europe in contrast receives over 80-thousand asylum claims a year.

Both major parties in Australia are taking a hard line on asylum seekers and their detention has generated international condemnation, including by the UN.

Region-wide the report recommends improved border controls, tough action against people smugglers and improved protection for smuggled refugees and labour migrants.

The Australian Crime Commission supplied much of the Australian data for the report.

The Commission's Executive Director John Lawler says as a strategic document it provides useful information for the setting of government policy.

“There are some extensive recommendations made in the report. I think it's quite fitting and appropriate and necessary that the report is studied carefully. Particularly where a lot of these issues are not restricted to one agency; these are issues and challenges which cut across government which is why governments have acted the way they have by putting serious and transnational crime firmly within the national security agenda. And my sense is this report combined with other reports and information available to governments are very helpful in informing us as to contemporary pictures and contemporary responses.”

A conservative estimate of the cost of organised crime to Australia is 15 billion dollars.

The government has set the tackling of organised crime as a major priority of national security.

As the UN report recommends, international cooperation will be the key.