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An estimated 2 million women around the world are victimized by sexual trafficking each year. But in Southeast Asia, a global hub for the sex trade, three Christian missionaries have created model programs to liberate prostitutes and keep young women out of the sex tourism industry.

One of world's largest recruiting grounds for prostitutes is in the mountains of northern Thailand. As many as 35,000 girls currently are enslaved in prostitution, according to Kevin Bales, author of the newly published Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy (University of California Press). From Thailand, the girls are conveyed to Thai cities, Hong Kong, or elsewhere overseas. In New York, 30 Thai girls were released from their prisonlike bordello after one of them telephoned police for help.

Although local authorities have the legal power to curtail indigenous prostitution, they are ill-equipped to fight the underground network of sexual traffickers.

ESCAPING THE CYCLE: In the far northern mountains of Thailand, American Baptist missionary Zothan Siami Ralte, 39, battles the sexual traffickers with wooden loom, Bible, and chalkboard. Under her slogan, "Prevention is better than cure," Ralte has launched half a dozen enterprises to provide work, spiritual strength, and education to mountain-tribe girls who are at risk of falling prey to sexual traffickers.

Lasu is a typical example. As an orphan, she had little hope to marry or to learn enough to earn a living. Likely, she would have drifted into a coastal city where procurers scour the streets to "befriend" the lost and lonely. Ralte sprang into action when some relatives contacted her about Lasu. Ralte took her into her home, enrolled her in school, and started teaching her how to make mountain tribal cloth on a wooden loom. Today, Lasu tends to her flourishing family and teaches new lonely girls how to weave themselves a stable future.

In the Thai mountains, Bales says, some Buddhists are tolerant of prostitution, counseling resignation in the face of suffering, an attitude that puts girls of poor families at risk. The girls are also loyal to their families and may be willing to become prostitutes in order to provide for their families.

In addition, the lure of Western wealth draws girls. Human Rights Watch interviewed freed child prostitutes in Thailand and found that "wearing Western clothes in a restaurant" was the most common answer to the question: What does it mean to be a prostitute?

Tribal people have come to see Ralte as part warrior and part housemom as director of the Hilltribes Resources and Development Center. Born to Christian parents in a hill tribe in India, Ralte identifies with the young girls in northern Thailand. At age 26, Ralte went to teach in a Thai school. There she read newspaper accounts about young prostitutes. "I thought that if we could do something to prevent them from drifting into low-wage jobs in the city, we could keep them out of prostitution," she says.

But Ralte had no money, no experience, and few connections. At first, she rented a house and took in five at-risk girls, parentless or poverty-stricken, to live with her. Two of the now grown-up girls help Ralte with the Hilltribes Center ministry. Sula, one of those two, helps Ralte with cooking, teaching, and office work. "I hope to graduate from teacher's college, share Christ with my parents, and help the other girls," Sula says.

With help from Swedish Baptists in 1989, Ralte started by helping 25 girls from two provinces. She soon realized that the education and Bible studies needed to be supplemented by vocational training. So Ralte hatched her 14-village weaving combine in 1991.

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October 4 1999, Vol. 43, No. 11