Discuss how women are recruited for the sex trade.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Recruiters, traffickers, and pimps who engage in trafficking foreign women for the purpose of sexual exploitation have developed common methods of recruitment. One method is through advertisements in newspapers offering lucrative job opportunities in foreign countries for low-skilled jobs, such as waitresses and nannies. Some advertisements promise good salaries to young, attractive women who will work as nannies, models, actresses, dancers, and hostesses. Women, especially from Eastern European countries, are recruited through social events and auditions, such as photo sessions. The process is usually complex, with detailed deception calculated to reassure the women that the employment opportunity is genuine. It is estimated that 20% of trafficked women are recruited through media advertisements. Another method of recruitment is through "marriage agencies," sometimes called mail-order-bride agencies or international introduction services. According to the International Organization for Migration, all mail-order-bride agencies with women from the republics of the former Soviet Union are under the control of organized crime networks. Many of these agencies operate on the Internet. Recruiters use "marriage agencies" as a way to contact women who are eager to travel or emigrate. This route into the sex industry can take several forms. The recruiters may be traffickers or work directly with traffickers. The woman may meet with a man who promises marriage at a later date. The man may use the woman himself for a short period of time, then coerce her into making pornography, and later sell her to the sex traffickers in the sex industry, or he may directly deliver the woman to a brothel. There are, however, strict U.S. laws intended to regulate the marriage broker industry. Some traffickers use the woman's legal documents and tourist visas to legally enter the destination countries. The women may be put on a circuit by pimps in which they are moved from country to country on legal tourist visas or entertainers' visas. Other times, the woman is given false documents. In this case, the woman is even more vulnerable after she arrives in the destination country because she is there illegally.