Some good news in a tragic case:

HEADLINE: THAILAND/MIDDLE EAST - A suspected human trafficker has been arrested for allegedly luring women to the sex trade in the Middle East, Thai police said. Officers of the Suppression of Crimes Against Children and Women Monday arrested La-iad Kaewdee, 32, in Thai central province of Samut Prakan. She has been charged with being a member of a gang procuring women for prostitution, a police source was quoted on Monday by Thai news group The Nation as saying.

Police said La-iad had admitted the charges but claimed she had only been involved in duping one woman. Division deputy commander Colonel Jaruwat Vaisaya said a victim who escaped from a brothel in an unnamed Middle Eastern country reported La-iad after being assisted back to Thailand by the Foreign Ministry.

The victim alleged La-iad lured her to the Middle East with the promise of a well-paying job in a restaurant. When she arrived her passport was seized and she was forced to work as a prostitute. The gang claimed she owed 100,000 baht (about 2,780 U.S. dollars) for transport costs, said the report.

“We estimate up to 100 women remain in the Middle East being forced to work as prostitutes,” Jaruwat said. Most of the victims are from the North and Northeast of Thailand. Human trafficking “networks” go to different places and lure women with promises of good jobs as domestic helpers or in restaurants. (Xinhua General News Service January 15, 2007)

Source: Gender Watchers

100 only from Thailand, perhaps. But the number of women being forced into prostitution in the region go up to thousands, and are being smuggled from various parts of the world, mostly Asia and Eastern Europe.