The trafficking industry

 

The trafficking of women for the sex industry contains two criminal elements: slave trade and slavery. The slave trade constitutes the supply side of the industry; the slavery constitutes the demand.

 

These two components of modern day slavery involve three fundamental steps.

 

• The procurement

• The transport

• The exploitation

 

…and the “goods for sale” are the women and children who are forced into prostitution.

 

The internal relationship between the three components is what governs the supply and handling of the “goods”, the women traded for the sex industry. How the “businesses” and their function within the industry of human trading are connected is shown by the graphic illustration below.

 

The purchase of a sex slave is usually possible through one of the following methods: fraud, abduction, seduction, buying a girl from her family, or taking over an existing slave. All of these methods are used in almost all countries, but local circumstances, such as poverty, makes some methods more prevalent in some countries than others.

 

The transport of the women is carried out by every method imaginable: Women are transported in the trunks of cars, escorted on busses, planes, ferries, or on foot or horseback depending on the region.

 

Sometimes structured criminal organisations procure and take advantage of slaves from and in their own region before they send them off to brothel owners and other clients in all of Europe. This way the human traders can test, choose and traffic the slaves which are most likely to be able to fulfil their clients’ specific demands no matter if these are for commercial sex, manufacturing or begging.

 

Everyone, except from the victims, profits from this trade of women.