Some of these women travel to PNG on tourist visas, knowing that they will engage in prostitution, The National reports.
Upon arrival, they are dispersed to various nightclubs, bars and employee dormitories and soon end up in a situation of involuntary servitude.
The report said some logging camps bring women indicating that they would work as cooks and secretaries.
The report said internally women and children are sold for sexual exploitation. Women are occasionally sold as brides, and children are held in indentured servitude either as a means of paying a family debt or because the natural parent cannot afford to support the child.
It said children in prostitution are common in nightclubs and bars in the cities.
The report said the PNG government does not fully comply with the minimum standards for eliminating trafficking and is not making any significant effort to do so. It said the government did not report any progress in prosecuting or punishing trafficking offences over the last year.
It said while the Criminal Code prohibits the trafficking of children for commercial sexual exploitation, slavery and abduction, there are no specific penalties for crimes of trafficking adults for commercial sexual exploitation.
The report said wealthy business people, politicians and members of the police are complicit in profiting from the operations of establishments profiting from prostitution, even though prostitution was illegal in PNG.
Police rarely raid these operations and when they do, owners are frequently tipped off before hand and those arrested are rarely prosecuted. The U. S. urged PNG to work with international experts and donors to formulate anti-trafficking legislation.
