ABSTRACT

This chapter explores the connections between poverty, the violence against women that stems from deep structural inequality, and sex trafficking. Human trafficking is the fastest growing, most lucrative source of income for organized crime and is exceeded only by the drug trade in terms of its scope. The commodification of human beings causes intolerable degradation and suffering, yet it is rising dramatically in the current era of globalization. Trafficking involves deception, coercion, intimidation, threats of violence and actual violence for the purpose of labor or sexual exploitation. Trafficking in persons is a sophisticated form of organized crime, which often flows along complex international networks that are obscured and abetted by official corruption. A UNICEF study showed that of all Mexico's children, those in Mexico City and those living along the United States border had the highest risk of sexual exploitation.