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Sexual trafficking in women: International political economy and the politics of sex

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Abstract

A recent manifestation of the North/South, East/West political-economic divide is the international sex trade in women, of which trafficking in women for purposes of sexual employment is a large subset. Trafficking in humans in general, and women in particular, has taken center state in many nation-states as an issue of a threat to national security and societal cohesion. This article explores some of the basic facts about trafficking and spotlights it as a truly global phenomenon, with its contemporary origins in the international capitalist market system. Furthermore, it argues that the international political economy of sex not only includes the supply side—the women of the third world, the poor states, or exotic Asian women—but it cannot maintain itself without the demand from the organizers of the trade—the men from industrialized and developing countries. The patriarchal world system hungers for and sustains the international subculture of docile women from underdeveloped nations.

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  1. Woodrow Wilson International Center for scholars in Washington, D.C., Washington, D.C., USA

    Andrea Marie Bertone Ph.D. Candiate (Program Assistant-Middleeast and Africa Project)

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  1. Andrea Marie Bertone Ph.D. Candiate
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Correspondence to Andrea Marie Bertone Ph.D. Candiate.

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Bertone, A.M. Sexual trafficking in women: International political economy and the politics of sex. Gend. Issues 18, 4–22 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12147-999-0020-x

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