Sexual Trafficking

In my IR 316 class, I recently watched a Frontline documentary entitled "Sex Slaves," which focuses on the sexual trafficking of women. I have had particular interest in this issue since finding out about it in one of the political science classes I took fall of 2005. As a short background introduction into the subject, it is estimated that 90% of the world's trafficked people are women (Tiuriukanova,2005, p. 108). This gender problem is fueled by the demand of sexual tourism from the developing countries and by the increasing poverty that women face in the global economy. Unemployed and poor women in developing countries usually seek employment abroad, and put their trust in the hands of so-called work agencies that will find decent work for them abroad. It turns out, however, that these agencies are fake and when women arrive to the country of destination, they are sold to pimps who will exploit them for sexual services. Once sold, these women face psychological and physical trauma that renders their chance of escaping obsolete. Only a few are successful enough to flee and tell their heartfelt stories.
Furthermore, though I have read extensively on the subject, many of the academic readings have lacked personal narratives on the women who have been sold into the sexual services industry. Most books simply include short quotations about a women's experience and are followed by endless pages of statistics and repetition of how the problem was caused. In this sense, the real stories behind the issue that would be more effective in mobilizing the public to take action get replaced with academic discourse. This is not to imply that an adequate analysis of trafficking is not required, but that it should include the women's' own experience.
For this reason, I thought the video did more to capture the real problem women face, then most of the research I have read. Trafficked women were interviewed, and their stories of hardships were made known. The crew even had the chance to interview an ex-trafficker who detailed how this underground business ran. The film personnel also conducted their own investigation into the problem by following the steps of notorious traffickers. Thus, one gained first hand experience of how sex traffickers go about recruiting women, and then transferring them out of the country. Through its visual imagery and story-telling, this video did more to expose the lucrative nature of sexual trafficking than most articles have. In part, it is due to human tendency to be more responsive to images and sounds than words on paper. If anyone is interested in this issue, you can find more information by clicking on the links below.
Human Traffic
Coalition Against Trafficking


Reference
Tiuriukanova, Elena. “Female Labor Migration Trends and Human Trafficking: Policy Recommendations.” Human Traffic and Transnational Crime. Stoecker, Sally and Louise Shelley, eds. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005: 108.