YANGON, Myanmar — Hong Kong action star Jackie Chan is going to Myanmar this week on a three-day mission to help combat child trafficking in the Southeast Asian nation.
UNICEF announced Tuesday that in his capacity as a good-will ambassador, Chan will visit the agency's projects for supporting trafficked children under special care for trauma and distress. He also will meet with officials of the Social Welfare Ministry and members of the Myanmar Police Anti-Trafficking Task Force in Mandalay, Myanmar's second-largest city.
The U.S. State Department's annual report on human trafficking says thousands of children in Myanmar are forced to serve in the national army and ethnic military groups. However, Myanmar signed an agreement with the United Nations last week to ban the recruitment of child soldiers and demobilize those already serving.
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RELATED SLIDESHOW: SEX TRAFFICKING AROUND THE WORLD
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Thailand
In this picture taken on August 18, 2009, a Thai bar girl waits for customers outside a bar in Sungai Kolok, in Thailand's southern province of Narathiwat. The sun hasn't set, but already the music is pumping and the disco ball is rolling in the Sumtime Bar, where Malaysian men are enjoying the drinks and women available on this side of the Thai border.
Kinshasa, Congo
A 12 year-old prostitute cries in a medical center in Kinshasa on November 7, 2010 after she was stoned by an other child prostitute. Child prostitutes earn about 2000 Congolese Francs (2,2 USD) for a sexual intercourse. More than 20,000 children live in the street of Kinshasa, a city of about 10 million. About a third have been accused of witchcraft and rejected by their families; a recent development in a disintegrated Congolese society undermined by poverty.
Bangladesh
A Bangladeshi sex worker takes an Oradexon tablet in a government-registered brothel in Faridpur, some 100 kilometres (60 miles) outside Dhaka on June 20, 2010. Whenever Bangladeshi brothel owner Rokeya, 50, signs up a new sex worker she gives them a course of steroid drugs often used to fatten cattle. For older sex workers, tablets work well, said Rokeya, but for younger girls of 12 to 14 -- who are normally sold to the brothel by their families -- injections are more effective.
England
A newspaper advertising board outside a corner shop in the Lancashire town of Rochdale after nine men were arrested for child sexual exploitation on January 11, 2011 in Rochdale, England. Greater Manchester Police have arrested nine men as part of an investigation into sexual exploitation and questioned on suspicion of rape, inciting child prostitution, allowing a premises to be used for prostitution and sexual activity with a child.
China
This photo taken on June 21, 2011 shows Chinese police (L) watching over a group of massage girls suspected of prostitution during a raid on a parlour in Beijing in a vice crackdown ahead of the celebrations for the founding of the Chinese Communist Party 90 years ago. Rapid social and economic changes have made China 'prone to corruption' and the ruling Communist Party faces a major challenge stamping out deep-rooted official graft, an official said on June 22.
Paris
A man wears a board with a slogan as he demonstrates with prostitutes and members of the Union of Sex Workers (Strass) on June 2, 2012 at the Pigalle square in Paris, to claim their rights to work in dignity and respect.
Guatemala City
Firefighters help a prostitute get out after she got trapped in a tunnel where she remained hidden during an operation against human trafficking at the 'Super Frontera' bar, late on April 21, 2012 in Guatemala City.
Nicaragua
Nicaraguan sex worker and member of NGO Girasoles Nicaragua (Nicaragua Sunflowers), Wendy, waits for clients on a street in Managua on April 18, 2012.
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07/03/12 09:34 AM ET Associated Press