Sex trafficking is a global phenomenon and there is often debate on how it should be addressed and resolved. According to Samarasinghe, female sex trafficking is “universally acknowledged as a highly exploitative activity” which results in great profit for those who exploit the women. (2008: 4) Many victims are young women and children who are coerced or forced into these positions of limited power. They are subject to much abuse so that those in power can attain pleasure, power, and wealth. Although sex trafficking victims can come from all parts of the world, a large majority of them come from Asia due to their abundant supply of bodies and cheap labor. Those who are subject to sex trafficking endure harsh conditions and suffer from
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Those who are not coerced or forced into the sex trade will sometimes willingly subject themselves to this fate due to poor economic circumstances. Although there is speculation and debate towards the legality of prostitution and selling one’s body, there is a further united front against the trafficking of sex slaves, the difference being one is participating in the sexual labor force willingly. By definition, “‘sex trafficking’ applies only when sex is sold under the control of triads or pimps, of when women are sold irrespective of their consent.” (Kempadoo , 2005: 151) While there are debates over prostitution and whether it should be recognized as actual labor, there is also opposition towards sex trafficking in which women are coerced or forced into the sex trade. According to Penttinen, the sex workers’ rights movement “emphasizes the profitability of sex work and [presents] it as such a rational choice as opposed to other forms of labor and which ground the arguments in individualist freedoms to earn money through commodification of sexuality.” (2008: 17) In doing so, it emphasizes the concept of objectifying these individuals as sexual objects as continuous profit is made off of their …show more content…
Although prostitution is not new phenomenon, an open-market economic policy allows for sex exploiters to make increased profits over an increasingly immoral source of labor. It would be difficult to stop sex trafficking all at once, and if “those high duties and prohibitions [were] taken away all at once, cheaper foreign goods…might be poured so fast into the home market, as to deprive all at once many thousands of our people of the ordinary employment and means of subsistence. The disorder which this would occasion might no doubt be very considerable. (Smith, 2014: 21) Although Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels do not agree with the free market and the negative aspects that they bring to the working class, it is agreed that their reluctance to agree with the free market policy should be against the system rather than the goods that are imported and exported through this process. “Political economy…does not recognize the unoccupied worker, the work-man, in so far as he happens to be outside this labour-relationship.” (Marx, 2013: 24) This may be true and a sad fact for lower class workers, but it should also be taken notice that although these workers are at the bottom of the social ladder, they still have basic human rights whereas sex slaves do not. While there is debate between Smith and Engels and Marx over the concept of the free market, there should be no debate as to whether or not
Those who are not coerced or forced into the sex trade will sometimes willingly subject themselves to this fate due to poor economic circumstances. Although there is speculation and debate towards the legality of prostitution and selling one’s body, there is a further united front against the trafficking of sex slaves, the difference being one is participating in the sexual labor force willingly. By definition, “‘sex trafficking’ applies only when sex is sold under the control of triads or pimps, of when women are sold irrespective of their consent.” (Kempadoo , 2005: 151) While there are debates over prostitution and whether it should be recognized as actual labor, there is also opposition towards sex trafficking in which women are coerced or forced into the sex trade. According to Penttinen, the sex workers’ rights movement “emphasizes the profitability of sex work and [presents] it as such a rational choice as opposed to other forms of labor and which ground the arguments in individualist freedoms to earn money through commodification of sexuality.” (2008: 17) In doing so, it emphasizes the concept of objectifying these individuals as sexual objects as continuous profit is made off of their …show more content…
Although prostitution is not new phenomenon, an open-market economic policy allows for sex exploiters to make increased profits over an increasingly immoral source of labor. It would be difficult to stop sex trafficking all at once, and if “those high duties and prohibitions [were] taken away all at once, cheaper foreign goods…might be poured so fast into the home market, as to deprive all at once many thousands of our people of the ordinary employment and means of subsistence. The disorder which this would occasion might no doubt be very considerable. (Smith, 2014: 21) Although Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels do not agree with the free market and the negative aspects that they bring to the working class, it is agreed that their reluctance to agree with the free market policy should be against the system rather than the goods that are imported and exported through this process. “Political economy…does not recognize the unoccupied worker, the work-man, in so far as he happens to be outside this labour-relationship.” (Marx, 2013: 24) This may be true and a sad fact for lower class workers, but it should also be taken notice that although these workers are at the bottom of the social ladder, they still have basic human rights whereas sex slaves do not. While there is debate between Smith and Engels and Marx over the concept of the free market, there should be no debate as to whether or not