How does author Kathryn Farr define sex trafficking in her book?

“Any practice that involves moving people within and across local or national boundaries for the purpose of sexual exploitation. Trafficking may be the result of force, coercion, manipulation, deception, abuse of authority, initial consent, family pressure, past and present family and community violence, economic deprivation, or other conditions of inequality for women and children (Donna Hughes)”

Understanding some of the basic trafficking patterns observed should help. These include:

• Imbalance of power and other resources (at the country, internationally [e.g., North vs South], but even household, levels–this helps explain where trafficked women and girls are coming from)
• Source and destination sites (what sorts of characteristics would identify a country as a source or destination site?)
• Women’s/girls’ status within their own cultures/societies/economies (where is rapid social and economic change taking place? For instance, Russia and the former Soviet states)
• Role of men (the vast majority of traffickers are male, although women often play critical roles in dealing with the trafficked women and girls)
• mainly in source countries (why would the problem be worse in the source countries?)
• role of organized crime groups (think of this like a business, with various functions being performed–organized crime rings, e.g., in Russia, Japan, China, have the organizational capital to pull this off, pay off officials, make credible threats, cultivate contacts, etc.). Not in all countries, but where they are active, the problem may be more difficult to address.
• “Consumers”
  • mostly men from destination countries
  • buying power (drives growth in sex tourism and in-country slavery

Some statistics and geography:

‘Source’ countries (women and girls’ countries of origin, circa 2005)

• estimated 1 million trafficked into sex industry (4 million trafficked/yr) cited by Farr from the IOM
  • Thailand: 100,000-200,000 women ‘working’ in other countries
  • 5,000 Thai women in Berlin alone
  • 90,000 Thai/Phillipinos in Japan (out of 150,000)
• 50,000 women from Dominican Republic ‘working’ abroad
• 14,000 Albanian women in Europe (20,000 in Italy, there was by 2004 an increase of 12,000 in two years)
• 35,000 women out of Colombia / yr
• 25,000 women out of Bangladesh / yr
• Obviously, the problem is international in scope. Any patterns in source countries?

‘Destination’ countries (where women are sent)

• 200,000 from Bangladesh into Pakistan over last 10 years
• 150,000 foreign women in Japan
• 75,000 Brazilian women in EU (European Union) countries
• 35,000 former East Bloc women in Italy
• 1,000-2,000 former Soviet women into Israel / yr
• According to Peter Landesmann, perhaps as many as 50,000women held captive as sex slaves in the US

So, any patterns evident here between source and destination countries?

Growth areas:

• Italy
• South Africa (tenfold increase in 3 years)
• Dominican Republic (tourism from US?)
• Balkans (formerly Yugoslavia–3-4-fold increase in 3-4 years)
• Israel: 250 brothels (2/3 increase in 3 years)
• In the U.S.? 250 brothels known in 26 cities
• NIS (Newly independent states of the East bloc countries, former Soviet Union)

More statistics:

• Nepal (1 – 2 million prostitutes)
• 350,000 Nepali and Bangladesh in India (over 100,000 in Bombay)
• 100,000 in Bangladesh
• 100 – 200,000 in Vietnam
• 50,000 in Cambodia
• NIS (newly independent states of the former East bloc):
  • up to 500,000 sold into prostitution annually (Russia, Ukraine, Belarus)
  • at least 50 destination countries involved
  • 120,000 in Turkey (registered)
  • 3,000 Ukraines in Greece
  • 15,000 in Germany’s red light districts
  • Ukrainian economy-50% “shadow economy” (privatized, criminal business

The business: Profits:

At least $12 billion/yr

• “low cost, reusable nature of the commodity”
• debt bondage-women must ‘pay back’ traffickers for their slavery
• LOW risk (of getting caught, of women w/o documentation reporting, constant threats of violence, often no trail for law enforcement, even if they were engaged, to follow)
• Little public attention-who in class knew much about this massive social problem?? When was the last time you saw a news story? Why is this such a low news priority?
• Debt bondage:
  • Bait and switch–job ‘opportunities’–women are often lured through deceptive, legitimate-sounding advertisements and announcements for jobs overseas–nannies, domestic workers, restaurant workers, dancers, models, entertainers, etc.
  • Women have to work as prostitutes first to pay off their debts, to ‘purchase their freedom’
  • Disclosure–women rarely know how much they owe, there are no contracts specifying how much of their debt is being paid off, they are often overcharged and must pay for their own medical care (even if it’s treatment for HIV infection because they were forced to have unprotected sex with an HIV positive man)
  • Women are essentially held indefinitely, never have a contract . . . pay for medical, housing, food, giving the brothel phone number to parents, trying to escape, (they may be fined) etc.
  • Living/working conditions (Farr’s accounts and Landesmann’s point this out quite graphically)

What is driving this social problem?

• Economic changes, globalization, ‘free trade’ making it easier to move goods, people across borders
• Status of women in these countries (has globalization led to changes? Has the erosion of the Eastern bloc economies actually lowered women’s status and economic opportunities?)
• Role of informal sector, economic opportunity structures
• What happens when the ‘supply’ of women run out (in a sense, this is a metaphor for globalization and labor outsourcing)? Find another source?
• Logistics, cooperation of authorities
• Growth of organized crime (again, spurred on by free trade)

Living conditions

• Many to a room
• Filthy, unsanitary
• Worse conditions in poor destination countries
• Chores on top, work, few days ‘off’
• 15-30 men per night/day (and in some cases women work ‘overtime’)
• intense social isolation
• constant threat of violence, violence in different forms for different reasons
• constant surveillance

Sex trafficker roles include:

• recruitment
• broker (agent, buys women from recruiter)
• contractor-organizes the transaction-often done through organized crime groups
• employment/travel agent (part of the bait, ‘lures’ women with legitimate front businesses)
• document thief/forger
• transporter
• employer (‘procurer’)-the pimp
• enforcer-the guards, the ones who enforce threats of violence
• As you can see, this resembles a legitimate business, and requires a fairly complex network and plenty of government cooperation to pull off. It may be especially difficult for ‘weak states’ or governments to combat this problem, even if the will exists.
• Organized crime rings seem to be heavily involved–mafias (Russia, Japan, China are more established), Taiwan, Albania, Kosovo, etc., Central and Eastern Europe, Moldova, Czech Republic

Violence as a public health issue

Beyond trafficking: