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Shine YOUR Light ~ Learn More About the Global Sex Trade

he Global Sex Trade Women’s bodies are commodities in the global sex trade, a multi-billion dollar industry. The international sex trade thrives on economic disparity – between men and women at all scales, and between regions on a global scale. Globalization has heightened these disparities. New regions and countries enter into the sex trade as their economic fortunes wax or wane. As poverty deepens in Eastern Europe, it becomes a major source region for prostitutes; as wealth expands in China and Malaysia, men in those countries fuel an increased demand for the traffic in women and girls. Large circuits of trafficking operate among the countries of East and Southeast Asia, and from Central and Eastern Europe into Western Europe. The global sex trade is sustained by astounding levels of coercion, torture, rape and systemic violence. Women are often lured into the sex trade under false pretences – hired as waitresses or maids and then forced into prostitution. Girls are often sold into prostitution by poor families and, increasingly, girls and women are simple kidnapped, often from poverty-stricken regions, to be traded globally as sex slaves and prostitutes. The AIDS/HIV epidemic is fueling demand for younger and younger girls, as customers try to find “safe” commercial sex partners.


From The Atlas of Women in the World (3rd edition 2003) by Joni Seager, © MyriadEditions.com
© Paola Gianturco 2007-2010 All Rights Reserved