The Rise of Sex-Trafficking in the U.S
On the country’s sunniest coast, three consumer products are readily available by the pound: alcohol, drugs, and women.
I made a pit stop in Las Vegas, or Sin City, recently and it was immediately evident why they called it such. Having been there before, I recognized the delicate game that goes on in the margin between indulgence and dependency. Still, I mean not to morally repudiate or delve into the complexity of the aforementioned game, but instead to question what is being sold as an indulgence, and by whom.
Prostitution does not occur exclusively in Nevada. Indeed, documentation demonstrating the exchange of sexual activity for something of value traces back to Mesopotamia around 2400 BCE (Novum,2024). The nuances of the sex trade have, along with our societies, become more complex and transformed into an industry: wherein billboards are used to advertise the fact that sex is readily available, and for sale. The industrialization of the sex work gives way to exploitation in the form of forced labor, where traffickers exploit and profit from adults or children coerced to perform sex acts and commercial sex through a variety of means (DOS, 2024).
Forced labor and situations of captivity encapsulate the acts of sex-trafficking, and thus present sex-trafficking as a form of modern-day slavery. Creating a timeline that details the inception of this specific form of enslavement is difficult. In the United States, for example, the atrocity of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade is not regarded as an instance of widespread sex-trafficking. People were trafficked and enslaved to perform gendered/domestic labor, and some suffered sexual assault at varying degrees. Even still; the perpetrators of the latter violence, or those who consumed and benefited from enslaved people’s labor did not profit primarily from enslaved people’s (especially women’s) sex work.
The specific conditions that differentiate sex-trafficking from labor trafficking began around the mid-19th Century in American history, wherein women were enslaved by traffickers to perform sex acts for profit.
The Gold Rush in the mid-19th century re-invigorated the American economy and catalyzed a drastic concentration of migration following a demand for hard labor, which in turn attracted human trafficking post the Transatlantic Slave trade period (NotForSale, 2024).
There was an influx of Chinese immigration, usually of men, who provided labor for the development of infrastructure projects such as building the Transcontinental Railroad (NotForSale, 2024). These workers, however, were often exploited under harsh conditions and some were trafficked and enslaved for their labor.
Simultaneously, Chinese women were targeted and coerced into participating in sex-work. Criminal syndicates known as Tongs also organized and orchestrated these novel forms of prostitution rings and profited from trafficked women’s sex work (NotForSale, 2024). The Chinese migrant community in the mid-19th Century was subjected to a form of labor exploitation that included a sex-work dimension, and was undoubtedly shaped by commercial caprice. In tandem with the increased availability of cheap or free labor, given the trafficking of Chinese migrants, sex-trafficking (as we recognize it modernly) emerged– pointing to a correlation between labor, wealth, and sex trafficking.
Simultaneously, Chinese women were targeted and coerced into participating in sex-work. Criminal syndicates known as Tongs also organized and orchestrated these novel forms of prostitution rings and profited from trafficked women’s sex work (NotForSale, 2024). The Chinese migrant community in the mid-19th Century was subjected to a form of labor exploitation that included a sex-work dimension, and was undoubtedly shaped by commercial caprice. In tandem with the increased availability of cheap or free labor, given the trafficking of Chinese migrants, sex-trafficking (as we recognize it modernly) emerged– pointing to a correlation between labor, wealth, and sex trafficking.
Sex-trafficking is indeed more common in wealthy countries. According to the NGO Exodus Road, which is dedicated to providing sex-trafficking survivors with resources and support to escape their situation, 52% of those trafficked are so in the wealthiest nations (). According to Mr. Goff, managing director of Exodus Road (Exodus,2025), sex-trafficking occurs in every single country, and takes on a variety of forms that differ from the widely held notions that define a situation of sex-trafficking– including a smuggling of persons across countries.
This means therefore that pinpointing an exact number that could elucidate the changes in the rate of sex-trafficking or the nature of the latter is difficult to obtain. The Global Slavery Index published by the International Labor Organization, regarded as one of the most accurate in their estimates, noted a 25% increase in human trafficking victims, using data from 2016 and 2021 where the number of human trafficking victims worldwide increased from 40.3 million to 50 million (ILO,2023). This reflects the fact that more people are enslaved today than ever before in history (ILO,2023). Data gathered by Exodus Road estimates that around 13% of human trafficking victims are sex-trafficked, and 44% of human trafficking victims are in forced marriages: most of those accounted for in this statistic are women and girls.
Sex-trafficking, like human trafficking at large, has increased according to changes in labor demands and distributions, with heightened mobility and technology (Knepper, P. 2015) Contrary to popular belief, not all trafficking situations include a factor of captivity or kidnapping, which is why it is important to stress that sex-trafficking is a crime of exploitation, more elusive to survivors who are likely in need of work or monetary assistance. Indeed, what could have begun as a consensual act may then become a situation of sex trafficking. It is imperative to stress furthermore, that, as the Department of State suggests the “initial willingness to engage in commercial sex acts is not relevant where a perpetrator subsequently uses force, fraud, or coercion to exploit the victim and cause them to continue engaging in the same acts” (Polaris Project,2023).
This is an issue that most readily impacts marginalized people, given that predators often prey on those vulnerable. In the majority of trafficking situations, the survivors know their abusers, which makes the abuse hard to identify. The survivor may not at once recognize their situation as strictly sex-trafficking: they may perceive it instead as a complicated relationship. This is because they have often undergone a lengthy and professionally executed ‘grooming’ (or emotional manipulation) process by their abuser that may convince them that they choose to be in this situation. This is also a reason why some survivors may not recognize that they can be helped, and hence why they do not seek out help from outsiders.
Given the fact that sex-trafficking can occur to anyone, but most often occurs to marginalized people and is a gendered experience, it can be helpful to recognize some of its methods.
Traffickers may recruit women through “boyfriending” otherwise known as the ‘pimp’ method, whereby they gain the women’s trust, making them emotionally, financially dependent on them, and sometimes using violence to coerce them into exchanging sexual favors for money– which the trafficker then keeps. Online recruiting can occur as well, where a trafficker may promise a girl a bright modeling future career and fly the victim out to their location for a ‘casting.’ Some may hide the fact they are travelling, and find themselves in a situation where they are sex-trafficked. It may also be the case that people are exploited for explicit online content. This is most common with children. Familial trafficking is another possible case of sex-trafficking, where the perpetrator may be a parent or close family member, both partaking in the abuse or coercing them to participate in sex-work.
In a situation of sex-trafficking, the perpetrators may first embark on the process of grooming, and then obtain means whereby they can coerce their victim into sex-trafficking by making them depend on them. This may encompass a financial, emotional, or housing dependency over their victim, or the victim’s families’ and loved one’s livelihoods.
Marginalized youth suffer the highest risk for sex-trafficking, as traffickers may exploit the vulnerability of those unhoused, those suffering with addiction, disabilities or those that have no other economic recourse. It is imperative to recognize sex trafficking as a result of an amalgamation of material inequalities including the conditions of patriarchy that shackle all women to a function as a sexual being.
WHAT IS BEING SOLD AND BY WHOM? WHO IS BUYING IT.
In a global political landscape where methods of labor entrapment and enslavement are growing and becoming more complex, it is not uncommon to wonder how this issue may be tackled. I believe we may approach the answer by dissecting the question posed above: what is being sold as an indulgence, and by whom?
Sex-trafficking is a crime that exploits compounded inequalities and targets vulnerable people who may see no other recourse: hence, it does not exist in a vacuum, but is part of other societal systems that contribute to the structural violence of marginalised people.
Commercial-sex has been around since the Mespotanic era, yet– never before have so many people (primarily women) been enslaved with the sole purpose of performing sex acts for profit. The propagation of sex-trafficking follows a patriarchal culture that perceives sex as something to be consumed, and effectively commodifies and markets women to fulfill this (mostly male) ‘consumer demand.’ I now ask: what would be the impact of a cultural shift where sex is no longer perceived as something to be consumed, or as an indulgence? What would the impact be of a culture where women (and their sexualities) are no longer seen as a commodity, or for male pleasure?
I offer that fighting against patriarchal normative standards (as briefly detailed above) can effectively aid in making structural changes to the conditions that make so many vulnerable to sex-trafficking.
Further Reading: https://www.againstviolence.art/frtrtr-proof-positive
Sources
The global slavery index 2023 - World. ReliefWeb. (2023, June 19).
Knepper, P. (2015, December 22). The investigation into the traffic in women by the League
of Nations: Sociological Jurisprudence as an international social project: Law and history review. Cambridge Core. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/law-and-
Not For Sale. (2023, December 3). Deep dive into the history of modern-day Slavery &
Human trafficking. https://www.notforsalecampaign.org/spreading-awareness/history-
The Novum. (2024, September 12). “The Oldest Profession”: Sex work through the lenses of
history, feminism, and sociology. https://sdsmtnovum.org/2021/09/08/the-oldest-
Typical trafficking patterns. Polaris Project. (2022, March 25).
U.S. Department of State. (2024). Department of State. U.S. Department of State. https://www.state.gov/humantrafficking-about-human-trafficking/
Your invitation to fight human trafficking. The Exodus Road. (2025, January 3).
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