Visit any capital city in Asia. Start a mission among the street children in west Java. Feed the poor and downtrodden in Iloilo. Reach the prostitute in Geylang and the bar girls. Spend any amount of time digging deeper, and what would you find? 

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Suppose you come into contact with a Kara, a Coco whose earnings flow back to a mother in Harbin or Andhra Pradesh. These are "downstream dollars" hard-earned and remitted back home to fund family needs. 

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This correlation between the sex worker in the brothel and her family back in the country of origin should give us a clue to how to get at the root of trafficking where procurement takes place, "upstream". 

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If there is one lesson learnt in the past years in Geylang: you cannot turn a blind eye to the needs and concerns of the street. If you lose control your street, you lose control of the city. And you cannot tell the story of prostitution in Asia without telling the story of destitute communities that require rehabilitation and restoration one village at a time, name by name and need by need.