Trafficking and women's human rights in a globalised world

Abstract

According to the United Nations, the global industry of human trafficking generates an estimated 5–7 billion dollars annually, with at least 700,000 victims every year. By all accounts, trafficking in human beings is increasing at staggering rates. Increased economic inequality, with its discriminatory impact on girls and women, ensures a supply of desperately poor women and girls willing to do anything to survive. Within continents and across oceans, women and children are bought and sold to serve the demands for exploitative sex or cheap labour. In this interview, Pamela Shifman talks to four women involved in challenging the international traffic in women which is a feature of globalised poverty and unemployment.