DHAKA, Jan 28 (AFP) - More than 200,000 Bangladeshi women have  
been victims of human trafficking in the past decade and smuggled 
into Pakistan with most ending up in the sex trade, a women's group 
revealed Thursday. 
   The Coalition Against Traficking in Women (CATW) said large  
numbers were forced into prostitution and many of them were minors 
or children. 
   Mizanur Rahman, an activist, said "in the last five years about  
14,000 children were trafficked out of Bangladesh ... lured by 
better jobs, promises of employment, tourism, love affair, 
kidnapping." 
   "The most alluring age for the boys is between eight to 12 and  
between 10 to 14 for the girls," he said. 
   The Bangladesh Women Lawyers Association said police estimated  
there were up to 20,000 child street prostitutes in Dhaka and a 
recent study had indicated most enter the flesh trade before 
reaching puberty. 
   Nepal's Durga Ghimire said "every year 1,000 Nepalese girls born  
into poverty and hardship are being trafficked to India and other 
parts of the world." 
   "No women and children should be in prostitution," said a  
Filipino ex-prostitute Evelyn Asombrado at a three-day seminar that 
opened here Wednesday. 
   "I do not want the next generation of women and children to be  
in it too," she added. 
   The meeting in Dhaka, which ends Friday, has gathered 300  
participants aiming to draw up an action plan to stop the illegal 
trade in women and children. 
   "Prostitution is a torture," said another activist.  
   CATW President Aurora Javate de Dios said prostitution involved  
thousands of women and girls and reaped enormous profits for 
organised crime gangs across the world. 
   "Sexual exploitation especially prostitution and trafficking  
violates women's human rights and is a severe form of 
discrimination," she said. 
   "Imagine a world without prostitution and sexual exploitation  
... (we) want to live without fear of violence and sexual 
exploitation," Dios added. 
   CATW Bangladesh chief Sygma Huda warned that the smuggling of  
women has reached "alarming" proportions in Asia. 
   "We have organised this conference to increase awareness about  
the magnitude of such crimes," she added. 
   CATW, grouping 50 women's organisations in the Asia-Pacific  
region, North America, Latin America and the Caribbean, was formed 
in 1988 and has called for increasing government intervention to end 
the situation. 
   The Association for Development Agencies in Bangladesh (ADAB)  
said in a paper presented at the conference that sex tours and 
conflict were among the major causes of the sexual exploitation of 
women. 
   "Bangladesh also experienced the victimisation of young girls  
and women of all ages during the war of liberation (against 
Pakistan) in 1971 with approximately 200,000 raped by the Pakistani 
occupation army," it said. 
   Bangladesh is the former east Pakistan and became independent  
after a nine-month bloody war that left three million people dead, 
according to official statistics here.