We Pay: The Economic Manipulation of International and Domestic Laws to Sustain Sex Trafficking

This article examines the international economic conditions that sustain sex trafficking. The author begins by conceptualizing the illegal sex industry as an international business that seeks to minimize costs and maximize profits. She looks at the development of the illegal sex industry and the international legal framework used to approach prostitution and trafficking as well as the strategies of individual states. Her focus is an analysis of how the economic market drives the illegal sex industry by allowing traffickers and international criminal organizations to take advantage of the discrepancies between international and domestic laws. In order to eliminate trafficking, she argues that there is a need for a consistent and uniform agreement at an international level to stop the economic profitability of and demand for illegal sex. [Descriptors: Migration - Trafficking, International]