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While we made a conscious decision to
focus on this topic in the United States only for this article, the
sexual trafficking of women is alive and well around the world. The
following stats, taken from the Factbook section at Coalition
Against Trafficking in Women’s website, provides a glimpse at the
international face of sexual exploitation. For more on this site,
visit Internet Café
for the Coalition Against Trafficking Women’s web link.
At least 3,500 Bulgarian prostituted women are in Poland and more
than 1,000 from Ukraine and Belarus.
(Polish Deputy Interior Minister)
The sex industry [in Indonesia]
accounts for an estimated 1.2 billion dollars to 3.3 billion dollars
in annual earnings, or between 0.8 and 2.4% of the country's GDP.
(Dario Agnote, "Sex trade key part of S.E. Asian economies, study
says," Kyodo News, 18 August 1998)
There are over 10,000 women in
prostitution in Tel Aviv.
(CEDAW Report, 8 April 1997)
There are 20,000 Filipina mail order
brides in Australia. . . . There have been 5,000 Filipina mail order
brides entering the United States every year since 1986, a total of
55,000 as of 1997.
(Gabriela, Statistics and the State of the Philippines, 24 July
1997)
As of July 1997, possession of child
pornography [in France] is not a crime. ("Child sexploitation within
the law's reach." The Nation, 02 Jul 1997)
In 1997, women who have identified
with secular culture in Algeria were kidnapped and made into sex
slave by rebels fighting in the name of Islamic revolution.
(Barbara Crossette, "An Old Scourge of War Becomes Its Latest
Crime," New York Times, 18 June 1998)
There are 50,000 women from the
Dominican Republic overseas in the sex industry—the fourth highest
number in the world, after Thailand, Brazil and the Philippines.
("Trafficking in Women From the Dominican Republic for Sexual
Exploitation,"
IOM, June 1996)
5,000 women of Chinese descent are in
prostitution in Los Angeles.
(Kathryn McMahon, Daniel B. Wood, "A Crusade to Free Captive
Daughters," Christian
Science Monitor, 12 March 1998)
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