Moving from history to the present day, the components of commercial sexual exploitation are depressingly similar in many parts of the world. They are as follows:
· Vulnerable women and girls are kidnapped, sold or deceived into the sex trade;
· They are raped, threatened, controlled, and assaulted (physically and emotionally) to ensure compliance;
· They are then forced to sell their bodies repeatedly, although they receive little to none of the proceeds;
· Police are either complicit in the sex trade (serving as customers, ignoring the issue, or protecting the traffickers for bribes) or they take the wrong action by treating the women and girls as the criminals instead of arresting the “johns” and the traffickers/brothel owners; and
· Once age, appearance and/or health issues reduce a woman/girl’s ability to earn money for the trafficker, she is killed or abandoned.
From beginning to end, women and girls are treated as products rather than human beings in a multi-million dollar industry that spans the globe.
Batstone, D. (2007). Not for sale: The return of the global slave trade - and how we can fight it. New York, NY: Harper Collins Publishers.
Batstone, D. (2007). Not for sale: The return of the global slave trade - and how we can fight it. New York, NY: Harper Collins Publishers.
