Sex Trafficking And Sex Trade

In the last few decades, the world has experienced rapid globalization. Scholte (2005) asserted that globalization refers to ‘a growth of transactions and interdependence between countries’ (p. 54). Despite the fact that globalization has been valuable for the world economy, it has prompted the rise of specific issues in various parts of the world (Sakir, 2014). One example would be the sex trade, which includes activities that involve providing sexual services for money or other compensation. In the sex trade industry, sex trafficking, also known as trafficking victims for slave labor and sexual exploitation, is very common. It is known as the ‘dark side of globalization’ due to an enormous upsurge of human enslavement that has accompanied a border-free world economy (Kapur, 2003). During the recent 30 years, the rapidly growing sex trade has been massively “industrialized” worldwide, generating profits adding up to billions of dollars and has made a market of sexual exchanges in which millions of children and women have been converted into sexual commodities (Poulin, 2003). Ranked as the third most serious illegal trade after drugs and weapons (Hughes, 2000), sex trafficking is the illegal moving and selling of human beings across countries in exchange for financial or other compensation (Toepfer & Wells, 1994). It involves coercion, deception and even violence, depriving victims of human rights. The example of sex trade exemplifies one of the most complex networks