Manpower reaching military service age annually:
males age 18-49: 73,167
females age 15-49: 71,432 (2005 est.)
Military expenditures - dollar figure:
$11.04 million (2005 est.)
Military expenditures - percent of GDP:
0.4% (2005 est.)
Military - note:
Laos is one of the world's least developed countries; the Lao
People's Armed Forces are small, poorly funded, and ineffectively
resourced; there is little political will to allocate sparse funding
to the military, and the armed forces' gradual degradation is likely
to continue; the massive drug production and trafficking industry
centered in the Golden Triangle makes Laos an important narcotics
transit country, and armed Wa and Chinese smugglers are active on
the Lao-Burma border (2005)
Transnational Issues Laos
Disputes - international:
Southeast Asian states have enhanced border surveillance to check
the spread of avian flu; talks continue on completion of demarcation
with Thailand but disputes remain over islands in the Mekong River;
concern among Mekong Commission members that China's construction of
dams on the Mekong River will affect water levels
Trafficking in persons:
current situation: Laos is a source country for men and women
trafficked for the purposes of forced labor and sexual exploitation;
a significant number are economic migrants who are subjected to
commercial sexual exploitation or conditions of forced or bonded
labor in Thailand; to a lesser extent, Laos is a transit and
destination country for women who are trafficked for sexual
exploitation including a small number of victims from China and
Vietnam trafficked to work as street vendors and for sexual
exploitation in prostitution
tier rating: Tier 3 - Laos does not fully comply with the minimum
standards for the elimination of trafficking and is not making
significant efforts to do so
Illicit drugs:
estimated cultivation in 2004 - 10,000 hectares, a 45% decrease
from 2003; estimated potential production in 2004 - 49 metric tons,
a significant decrease from 200 metric tons in 2003 (2005)
This page was last updated on 8 February, 2007
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