The Trafficking of Women

The Trafficking of Women The trafficking of women and girls for the purpose of prostitution is big business. It has been and still is one of the biggest industries worldwide. These unfortunate women and girls do not lead normal lives, but rather they are bought and sold as commodities. They also usually have no control over their lives and live in conditions of extreme poverty and abuse. Trafficking, debt bondage, forced labor, and other abuse is suffered by women all over the world and it is a violation of human rights. The problem is one of international proportion. United States feminists as well as many nongovernmental organizations acknowledge that this is a huge problem that needs to be tackled with greater proportions. We exist in a global political economy, which acknowledges the common mechanisms of sexual oppression and class exploitation which could ultimately eliminate the gulf between there being an "us" and a "them" in society. In Mexico alone, in Juarez and Chiuahua, Mexico over 400 women and girls are lives are lost. More than 70 remain missing, but lives are lost to all of the people involved. There have been recent measures taken, but the response still remains inadequate. Gale Rubin speaks of trafficking in her article The Traffic in Women. She says that sex has always been a desired product and always will be. It is a social activity that has been around since the beginning of time and always will be around. "The "exchange of women" is a seductive and powerful concept. It is attractive in that it places the oppression of women within social systems, rather than in biology. Moreover, it suggests that we look for the ultimate locus of women's oppression within the traffic of women, rather than within the traffic in merchandise. Women are given in marriage, taken in battle, exchanged for favors, sent as tribute, traded, bought, and sold (175)". Even when men are trafficked they still receive a social status that goes along with

Bibliography: Coalition Against Trafficking in Women. Dec 8, 2006 www.catwinternational.org This is the NGO site that contained the most information about women trafficking, as well as many resources that and a fact book. Libertad Latina. News and Human Rights from the Americas. Dec 8, 2006. www.libertadlatina.org This site contained the most updated information to be found on the Juarez murders. Have updates periodically of any new information. Monzini, Paola. Sex Traffic: Prostitution, Crime and Exploitation. Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand: White Lotus, 2005. This book discusses the problematic issues of trafficking and all of the global issues involved. Countries and cases around the globe. O 'Connor, Monica, and Grainne Healy. The Links between Prostitution and Sex Trafficking: A Briefing Handbook. Coalition Against trafficking In Women, 2006. The handbook features a great deal of information that concerns women and children around the globe. Has a great deal of facts and figures and basically tells the reader anything that they need to know entailing trafficking and forced prostitution. Reiter, R. Toward an Anthropology of Women. Rubin, Gale The Traffic in Women: Notes on the "Political Economy" of Sex. NY: Monthly Review, 1975. This book is where the Gale Rubin article was first featured in. She talks of all the different commodities that women are seen as. Discusses the personal as well as the political.