What leads into prostitution and even into sex trafficking?
Unemployment, poverty, lack of education, gender discrimination and violence may be conclusively marked as discriminatory and downside factors “pushing” someone into prostitution or even sex trafficking.
These factors are coupled with “pulling” factors that make potential victims easily susceptible to the “baits” of easy money or even worse into the hands of the human traffickers.
This is namely because of the imaginary advantages of life in better-off Western societies and the expectations of employment and earnings.
Social factors play the major role
Compared to women (even in
Women on the other hand, already socially weaker, are then cast to an even weaker and less significant position. Moreover, many girls and women in particular in the eastern and southern parts of
Due to these factors, women still remain marginalized and discriminated against, which prevents them from taking active part in society.
Gender based discrimination
In times of crisis e.g. when unemployment is on the rise or armed conflicts or in areas where there is a high level of gender stereotypes, which often intensify the perspective; “men should work and bring bread home, while women should do the housework”.
In everyday life, women experience discrimination in countless ways.
Discrimination in the labour market
In the labour market, women are the last to get a job and the first to be fired. Thereby they are subject of higher risks. Therefore, when women are denied access to regulated labour market, they are forced to look for job on the black market, which make them easy prey to human traffickers or into prostitution. (Men who lose their jobs are at similar risk, too.)
Violence against women and children
Violence against women and girls, especially domestic violence, also leave women and children at greater risk of a life on the streets.
Domestic violence is a heavy factor in making many young women, girls and boys, want to leave their families and their countries, where they are offered no protection.
Thus, women who face unemployment, sex harassment and domestic violence often view offers for well-paid jobs in foreign countries as a magical escape to a better world; children see it as an escape from violence.
General circumstances in transition and developing countries
Transition brings about numerous political, social and cultural changes, including the redistribution of economic power, which have resulted in increased poverty and unemployment, the main causes of sex trafficking.
A large number of people are in constant search for work and a better life, which certainly makes a human trafficker’s job very easy. Women are especially vulnerable because they work in industries that have felt most changes and subsequently most lay-offs (textile industry, services…).
And the globalisation itself has opened many opportunities for people to move around in search for a better life.
Also the borders in many regions have opened making it much easier for traffickers to move their victims around different areas. And for the lone woman without a job, it has become easier for support her family by being a prostitute abroad.
The above are just some of the many other reasons for the increase seen in