Trafficking is a huge global problem hundreds of thousands of people

have been trafficked.

Women and girls are seized worldwide in the sex trade from Russia and
the other former Soviet republics, large parts of Asia and Central,
South America and mainly in India.

The women and girls, whose passports and identification papers are
confiscated by the traffickers, sometimes are "recycled" -- turned over
from one brothel to another -- and many return home only after
contracting diseases such as AIDS.

Some 50,000 people annually -- about half of them in the sex trade --
are trafficked into the United States, according to a CIA estimate. "The
trafficking in the United States is significant, but it's even larger in
some other regions where the borders are not as patrolled and guarded

The United Nations, which has no estimate of the number of people

trapped in sex trafficking, is fighting to come to grips with the problem.
Negotiators from more than 100 countries are working in Vienna on a
protocol relating to human trafficking as part of a U.N. convention
against transnational crime.

Human Rights Watch is set to release a report in September on the

trafficking of Thai women into the sex industry in Japan. The activist
organization previously has detailed the shipment of thousands of
Nepali women into India, women from Myanmar (Burma) into Thailand,
and women from Eastern Europe into Bosnia. A Human Rights Watch
staffer also previously investigated the trafficking of Russian women
into Israel.

young women are being trafficked from Russia to 43 countries at the

last count -- pretty much every Western European country, Canada, the
U.S., Mexico, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand."

Women from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are trafficked in large

numbers into the Middle East, particularly wealthier nations such as
Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and even Saudi
Arabia. And she said there is significant trafficking from southern and
central Africa to Nigeria, which seems to be a transit point to northern
Africa, Spain, and as far north as Sweden and Norway.

A couple weeks ago, in response to my post questioning whether or not

it's still hard out there for a pimp, some commenters claimed that the
answer to the problem of trafficking was the legalization of prostitution
since, after all, it was "the world's oldest profession."

First of all who started that rumor? I would like to nominate the fashion
industry as the world's oldest profession, since someone had to make
those fig leaf threads sported by Adam and Eve on their way out of
Eden. But the question at hand is: will legalizing prostitution work?

Amsterdam

Let's take a look at the Netherlands where the welcome mat to publicly
available sex and drugs has been out for the entire world to cross. The
fame of Amsterdam's Red Light District was such that Thomas Cook
Tours (that venerable British tour agency) offered a walking tour of the
Red Light District, promising "a fascinating insight into the oldest
profession in the world." To woo prospective visitors, Mssrs. Cook
offered reduced price tickets to children under 12 years old and free
passes for those under three. Following public outcry, the tour is no
longer available.

So what about that Red Light District anyway? I have news for you,
folks. It didn't work. Several years after lifting the ban on brothels,
Amsterdam's Mayor Job Cohen admits that, while the law was created
for voluntary prostitution, "these days we see trafficking of women,
exploitation and all kinds of criminal activity."

The majority of the women behind the windows are from foreign
countries, brought to the Netherlands under false pretenses, enslaved
by their pimps, and subject to acts of violence on a daily basis. The
proliferation of sex trafficking in Amsterdam has made that city's Red
Light District into an enclave of organized crime and corruption that
has caused even the socially liberal Dutch to say, enough. From
occupying a large enclave in the heart of Amsterdam's historic center,
the Red Light district is now being limited to two streets. The numbers
of windows are curtailed and the hours of operation are shortened. Far
from enabling safe and consenting sexual encounters to take place,
the opening of brothels had the opposite effect, opening the door to
heightened organized activity with a related increase in sex slavery.

Anyone still thinking that legalizing prostitution is the answer to sex

trafficking ought to take a tour through Amsterdam and pay Mayor
Cohen a visit. But hurry. The welcome mat is wearing thin.
INDIA

India is a source, destination, and transit country for men, women, and
children trafficked for the purposes of forced labor and commercial
sexual exploitation.

Internal forced labor may constitute India’s largest trafficking problem;

men, women, and children are held in debt bondage and face forced
labor working in brick kilns, rice mills, agriculture, and embroidery
factories. While no comprehensive study of forced and bonded labor
has been completed, NGOs estimate this problem affects 20 to 65
million Indians. Women and girls are trafficked within the country for
the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and forced marriage.
Children are subjected to forced labor as factory workers, domestic
servants, beggars, and agriculture workers, and have been used as
armed combatants by some terrorist and insurgent groups. India is
also a destination for women and girls from Nepal and Bangladesh
trafficked for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation. Nepali
children are also trafficked to India for forced labor in circus shows.
Indian women are trafficked to the Middle East for commercial sexual
exploitation. There are also victims of labor trafficking among the
thousands of Indians who migrate willingly every year to the Middle
East, Europe, and the United States for work as domestic servants and
low-skilled laborers. In some cases, such workers are the victims of
fraudulent recruitment practices that lead them directly into situations
of forced labor, including debt bondage; in other cases, high debts
incurred to pay recruitment fees leave them vulnerable to exploitation
by unscrupulous employers in the destination countries, where some
are subjected to conditions of involuntary servitude, including non-
payment of wages, restrictions on movement, unlawful withholding of
passports, and physical or sexual abuse. Men and women from
Bangladesh and Nepal are trafficked through India for forced labor and
commercial

LATIN AMERICA

Several countries of the Latin American region have already enacted

new legislation criminalizing human trafficking and have taken
measures to assist victims of trafficking. Experts stressed the
importance of providing victims willing to testify with special
protection and support instead of repatriating them immediately to
their country of origin. Similar to ongoing practices in the fight against
drug trafficking, regional cooperation in the exchange of information
and evidence will be of essence. This includes the need to prosecute
immediately in the case of non-extradition of nationals involved in
cases of trafficking. Countries have to review their own legislation to
harmonise the definition of trafficking in accordance with the United
Nations Protocol against Trafficking in Persons, in order to improve
criminal prosecution's capacity. The experts also called for the creation
of specialized police units and training in special investigative
techniques.