Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery

by Siddharth Kara

Overview

Since the publication of Sex Trafficking in 2007, Siddharth Kara has continued to travel across countries and continents, documenting the local factors and economic forces that support sexual slavery worldwide. His riveting encounters with victims and traffickers informed his screenplay for Trafficked (2016), now a major motion picture. The film features familiar figures from Sex Trafficking and the shocking conditions of their exploitation. It also includes cases Kara has uncovered since his book debuted.

This new paperback edition of Sex Trafficking includes a preface by Kara in which he discusses his findings and updates the statistics relating to his business and economic analysis of contemporary slavery. After fifteen years, Kara has recorded nearly 900 cases of sex trafficking in forty-one countries and has helped advise on numerous legal, tactical, and policy efforts for abolishing modern-day slavery across the globe. Sex Trafficking continues to lead as a resource for those hoping to expose this hidden evil and eradicate its practice once and for all.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231180337
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	08/29/2017
Edition description:	With a new preface by the author
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	263,545
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.80(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Siddharth Kara is director of the Program on Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and a lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of Bonded Labor: Tackling the System of Slavery in South Asia(2012) and Modern Slavery: A Global Perspective (2017), both from Columbia University Press.

Table of Contents

Preface to the 2017 Edition
Preface
Acknowledgments
1. Sex Trafficking: An Overview
2. India and Nepal
3. Italy and Western Europe
4. Moldova and the Former Soviet Union
5. Albania and the Balkans
6. Thailand and the Mekong Subregion
7. The United States
8. A Framework for Abolition: Risk and Demand
Appendix A: Selected Tables and Notes
Appendix B: Contemporary Slavery Economics
Appendix C: Selected Human Development Statistics
Notes
Works Cited
Index

What People are Saying About This

Kirk Douglas

Sex trafficking is more of a problem than most people realize. Read this well-written book and find out.

Editorial Reviews

Sex trafficking is more of a problem than most people realize. Read this well-written book and find out.

Kirk Douglas

Siddharth Kara possesses that rare and valuable combination of passion for his subject, insight, and rigorous research. His analysis is persuasive and his descriptions heartbreaking in their clarity. Human trafficking in all forms is slavery, no matter how you cut it, and in this book Kara brings a modern-day scourge to the light of day.

Erica Stone

A disturbing and illuminating study of one of the underbellies of economic globalization: the global sex trafficking industry.

Irish Times

An eloquent, campaigning book that addresses an evil that belittles our humanity.

Financial Times

The best book ever written on human trafficking for sexual exploitation. Representing a new period of solid yet humane scholarship, this breakthrough analysis represents a quantum leap in the study of this subject. Simply beyond anything I have seen anywhere.

Kevin Bales

An eloquent, campaigning book that addresses an evil that belittles our humanity.

Financial Times

Kara, a former investment banker and executive, uses theoretical economics and business analysis to propose measures that could eradicate sex trafficking by undermining the profitability of the illegal activities associated with the crime. At considerable personal risk and expense-he is nearly attacked by a gang of pimps in Mumbai-the author penetrates seedy underworlds and forced labor markets to meet the women and children in the "dungeon of human disgrace" in Asia, Europe and the U.S. He highlights ubiquitous and disturbing trends-the heavy involvement of law enforcement agencies and personnel in trafficking and slavery-but this book's intentions suffers from Kara's self-professed "rudimentary" economic analysis, which often borders on the offensive (a theoretical calculation of the lifetime value of a sex slave) and an unscientific, ad hoc research model. While the evidence indicates the urgent need for action-a woman or child is trafficked for sexual exploitation every 60 seconds-Kara's economic approach fails to shed new light on the human cost of sex slavery and seems at the best of times beside the point, although the detailed statistical information he compiles-on everything from the costs of running a brothel in Queens, N.Y., to massage parlor and bonded labor economics worldwide-is a resource for researchers in the field. (Jan.)

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Publishers Weekly

This is an important and necessary work and it will educate many people about sex trafficking around the globe.

H-Human-Rights - Meredith Ralston

An impressive, scholarly book that will prove an asset for the global anti-trafficking movement in the next decade.

Stanford Social Innovation Review - Holly Burkhalter

An eloquent, campaigning book that addresses an evil that belittles our humanity.

Financial Times - Jonathan Birchall

An important innovative resource that enriches the discourse on modern-day slavery and human trafficking.

Human Rights Review - Noam Perry

This book could not be more important. After years of witnessing slavery and meeting with slaves, Siddharth Kara illuminates one of our most pressing human rights issues. He offers brand new research and reliable facts, shattering the myths and sensationalism that tend to surround this topic. Everyone should read this book: it will change the way we think about our world.

Zoe Trodd

I approached this book with a certain weariness. Having worked on the subject of sex trafficking for many years, I was unenthusiastic about yet another exposé or cri de coeur from a business executive turned human rights advocate. I could not have been more wrong. This is a unique and inspiring book—an honest, lucid, and immensely intelligent account of a devastating yet pervasive aspect of contemporary globalization. It deserves to be widely read by anyone who wants to understand one of the most persistent and complex human rights violations of our times.

Jacqueline Bhabha

A disturbing and illuminating study of one of the underbellies of economic globalization: the global sex trafficking industry.

Irish Times - Padraig Carmody

Siddharth Kara has done a great service by laying bare the realities of sexual exploitation of women and girls around the world and the scale of this modern slavery. His analysis is rooted in an understanding of the way unregulated economic globalization has impoverished whole regions, failed to improve the miserable lot of women in many countries, and facilitated global criminal networks. His book should be widely read and his recommendations taken very seriously.

Baroness Vivien Stern

Sex trafficking is a crime that shames us all. To fight it we need to research it, know it in depth, and calibrate measures accordingly. Siddharth Kara's compelling economic and strategic analysis is very useful to our work. Readers will gain a deep understanding of the functioning of modern-day slavery as well as what can be done to eradicate it.

Antonio Maria Costa

Siddharth Kara has done a great service by laying bare the realities of sexual exploitation of women and girls around the world and the scale of this modern slavery. His analysis is rooted in an understanding of the way unregulated economic globalization has impoverished whole regions, failed to improve the miserable lot of women in many countries, and facilitated global criminal networks. His book should be widely read and his recommendations taken very seriously.

Vivien Stern

This is an important and necessary work and it will educate many people about sex trafficking around the globe.

— Meredith Ralston

H-Human-Rights

An impressive, scholarly book that will prove an asset for the global anti-trafficking movement in the next decade.

— Holly Burkhalter

Stanford Social Innovation Review