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A US Government report published in 2003, estimates that 800,000-900,000 people worldwide are trafficked across borders each year, the majority to Southeast Asia, Japan, Europe and North America. The trafficking of women has also been recorded (in high numbers) in South Asia and the Middle East and from Latin America into the United States. Since the mid 1990s, with the opening up of the former Soviet Union, the end of the wars in the former ] and the opening up of East and South East Asia, there has been an increase in the trafficking in human beings. ''See the main article on the'' ]. A US Government report published in 2003, estimates that 800,000-900,000 people worldwide are trafficked across borders each year, the majority to Southeast Asia, Japan, Europe and North America. The trafficking of women has also been recorded (in high numbers) in South Asia and the Middle East and from Latin America into the United States. Since the mid 1990s, with the opening up of the former Soviet Union, the end of the wars in the former ] and the opening up of East and South East Asia, there has been an increase in the trafficking in human beings. ''See the main article on the'' ].


A recent development should be noted that proponents of the ] (TVPA) in the ], and ] ] seek to define all forms of prostitution as exploitive or ''de facto'' slavery, and place emphasis on suppressing the demand for sex services, by prosecuting profiteers and customers. A recent development should be noted that proponents of the ] (TVPA) in the ], and ] ] seek to define all forms of prostitution as exploitive or ''de facto'' slavery, and place emphasis on suppressing the demand for sex services, by prosecuting profiteers and customers.
⚫ While this effort is advanced as a means to protect trafficked children and women, that are variously estimated at 20,000-100,000 annually in the United States, who have issued numerous critiques of these laws as another form of prohibition and stigmatization, that serve mainly to marginalize ]. -->
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⚫ While this effort is advanced as a means to protect trafficked children and women, that are variously estimated at 20,000-100,000 annually in the United States, who have issued numerous critiques of these laws as another form of prohibition and stigmatization, that serve mainly to marginalize ]. -->
Prostitute rights organizations argue that ] and extension of ] to sex workers is more effective in ensuring their economic, mental and medical health than any form of prohibition. Prostitute rights organizations argue that ] and extension of ] to sex workers is more effective in ensuring their economic, mental and medical health than any form of prohibition.


The term sex worker itself is rejected by the advocates of anti-slavery laws, who argue women cannot choose sex as an economic activity, and claim it is the criminal networks and customer demand that are the driving forces, not economic necessity. The term sex worker itself is rejected by the advocates of anti-slavery laws, who argue women cannot choose sex as an economic activity, and claim it is the criminal networks and customer demand that are the driving forces, not economic necessity.

Other critics point out that right-wing fundamentalist conservatives and prohibition feminists have joined together to promote the sex-slavery meme with exaggerated claims and lackluster results in trafficking prosecutions during five years of TVPA laws and hundreds of millions in government funding.


===Sexual slavery in the United States=== ===Sexual slavery in the United States===

Revision as of 11:40, 2 August 2006

For other uses, see Sexual slavery (disambiguation).
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Sexual slavery is a special case of slavery which includes various different practices:

  1. forced prostitution
  2. single-owner sexual slavery
  3. ritual slavery, sometimes associated with traditional religious practices
  4. slavery for primarily non-sexual purposes where sex is common or permissible

In general, the nature of slavery means that the slave is de facto available for sex, and ordinary social conventions and legal protections that would otherwise constrain an owner's actions are not effective. Female slaves are at highest risk of sexual abuse and sexual slavery.

The term "consensual sexual slavery" (meaning see for example BDSM and total power exchange) has occasionally been used, but should not be confused with true slavery.

Modern-day sexual slavery

Forced prostitution

Forced prostitution is a form of sexual slavery that is often directed at immigrants to Western and Asian countries. Often the "owners" of these people will confiscate passports and/or money in order to make the women involved completely reliant on them. This practice, also known as sex trafficking or human trafficking, is illegal in most countries.

Human trafficking is not the same as people smuggling. A smuggler will facilitate illegal entry into a country for a fee, but on arrival at their destination, the smuggled person is free; the trafficking victim is enslaved. Traffickers use coercive tactics including deception, fraud, intimidation, isolation, threat and use of physical force, debt bondage or even force-feeding with drugs of abuse to control their victims. Women are typically recruited with promises of good, legal jobs in other countries or provinces, or are tricked into a false 'marriage', and, lacking better options at home, agree to migrate. Traffickers arrange the travel and job placements, the women are escorted to their destinations and delivered to the employers. Upon reaching their destinations, some women learn that they have been deceived about the nature of the work they will do; most have been lied to about the financial arrangements and conditions of their employment; and all find themselves in coercive and abusive situations and kept in a financial situation that they are stuck in a form of debt bondage from which escape is both difficult and dangerous.

A US Government report published in 2003, estimates that 800,000-900,000 people worldwide are trafficked across borders each year, the majority to Southeast Asia, Japan, Europe and North America. The trafficking of women has also been recorded (in high numbers) in South Asia and the Middle East and from Latin America into the United States. Since the mid 1990s, with the opening up of the former Soviet Union, the end of the wars in the former Yugoslavia and the opening up of East and South East Asia, there has been an increase in the trafficking in human beings. See the main article on the trafficking of human beings.

A recent development should be noted that proponents of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) in the United States, and Sweden's Act On Prohibiting The Purchase Of Sexual Services seek to define all forms of prostitution as exploitive or de facto slavery, and place emphasis on suppressing the demand for sex services, by prosecuting profiteers and customers. 

                                                                    While this effort is advanced as a means to protect trafficked children and women, that are variously estimated at 20,000-100,000 annually in the United States, who have issued numerous critiques of these laws as another form of prohibition and stigmatization, that serve mainly to marginalize sex workers. -->

Prostitute rights organizations argue that decriminalization and extension of labor rights to sex workers is more effective in ensuring their economic, mental and medical health than any form of prohibition.

The term sex worker itself is rejected by the advocates of anti-slavery laws, who argue women cannot choose sex as an economic activity, and claim it is the criminal networks and customer demand that are the driving forces, not economic necessity.

Sexual slavery in the United States

In 2002, the US Department of State repeated an earlier CIA estimate that each year, about 50,000 women and children are brought against their will to the United States for sexual exploitation.. The former Secretary of State Colin Powell said that "Here and abroad, the victims of trafficking toil under inhuman conditions -- in brothels, sweatshops, fields and even in private homes."

Sexual slavery in Africa

Sex slavery is a problem in some parts of Africa. In many African communities marrying women requires paying a wedding dowry to her family, which lessens the perceived barrier to female slavery. The colonial powers abolished slavery in the 19th century, but in areas outside their jurisdiction, such as the Mahdist empire in Sudan, the practice continued to thrive. Nowadays, institutional slavery has been banned worldwide, but there are numerous reports of women sex slaves in areas without an effective government control, such as until recently, Sudan, Liberia, Sierra Leone, northern Uganda and Kongo. In Zimbabwe, the government is believed to train its youth militia, the Border Gezi Youth, to use rape as a tactic.

In Niger and Mauritania, sexual slavery also exists.

In Ghana, Togo, and Benin, a form of religious prostitution known as trokosi or ritual servitude keeps thousands of girls and women in traditional shrines against their will, forcing them to act as "wives of the gods," the shrine priests performing the sexual function in place of the gods. (The Trokosi System, Mark Wisdom, FESLIM--Fetish Slaves Liberation Movement, PO Box 21, Adidome, Ghana, 2001.) This can be compared with the devadasi system in India.

Sexual slavery in the Middle East

In the contemporary Middle East, sexual slavery is uncommon. However, trafficking of women does exist there, from Iran, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan to the Persian Gulf states. Israel and Turkey have also a significant sex trade-much of it involving women from Eastern Europe.

Sexual slavery in the past

Sexual slavery in North America

In the mid-19th century in the U.S., there was a white slavery scare which suggested that large numbers of white women were being kidnapped and forced into prostitution. The prevalence of this practice was greatly exaggerated due to xenophobia, and this phenomenon is generally regarded today as having been an example of a moral panic.

In fact, at that time, the US victims of sexual slavery were overwhelmingly women of African descent, held as slaves, often purchased with sexual exploitation as the primary goal. A supposedly true story of one such girl, purchased as a sexual slave when she was fourteen, is told in "Celia, A Slave," by Melton A. Mclaurin, and such practice is also widely referred to in other literature discussing the era, for instance Roots by Alex Haley. Frederick Douglass, in his autobiography, described the sale of female slaves openly advertised for sexual purposes at slave auctions in the 19th century United States. According to John A. Morone's book Hellfire Nation, slaveowners in the American South openly admitted to practicing sexual slavery.

Sexual slavery in East and Southeast Asia during World War II

During World War II, hundreds of thousands of mostly Asian women were tricked or otherwise coerced into serving the Japanese army as prostitutes in the wartime brothels of Asia during the Japanese occupation of Korea, China and other parts of South East Asia.

Many of them forced into sexual slavery by Japan and raped dozens of times daily by Japanese soldiers, the euphemistically named "comfort women" have faced lives of enduring shame.

Sexual slavery in Japan post World War II

The Japanese Home Ministry established a number of brothels euphemistically named Recreation and Amusement Association in August 1945 to serve the occupation forces. However, most of the prostitutes involved seem to have been Japanese women forced into the work through economic destitution, not physical coercion. The system was officially terminated in January 1946, by order of higher military commanders from the main occupying power, the United States.

Sexual slavery in the Middle East

Main article: Arab slave trade

Slave trade, including trade of sex slaves was a regular practice in the Middle East up to the twentieth century, when intervention of Western colonial powers effectively ended this trade. The main source for those slaves were Sub-Saharan Africa and subjugated peoples from the Caucasus.

Further reading

  • Lal, K. S. Muslim Slave System in Medieval India (1994), chapter XII: "Sex Slavery" ISBN 8185689679

See also

External references

Quality Organizations

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