Sexual Slavery, etc.

[bloom]

Forced prostitution

Forced prostitution is a form of sexual slavery that is often directed at immigrants to western countries. Often the "owners" of these people will confiscate passports and/or money in order to make the women involved completely reliant on them. This practice is universally illegal.

In many countries, illegal immigrants often work in prostitution in circumstances such that they feel they have no other choice. Often these prostitutes are kept in financial debt by the brothel owners, who charge them for their travel and other costs. The arrangement may be such that the prostitutes can never earn enough to pay off the debt. This is a form of debt bondage. This kind of sex slavery is often found in Germany and the Netherlands. Clearly separating this from East European women entering prostitution in Western countries knowingly and more or less willingly, to escape the daily hardships of their lives, is often not possible.

In addition to the First World, this also takes place in countries of South Asia such as India and Thailand, where young girls are sometimes sold (often by their own parents) to brothel owners. In modern day Thailand this is becoming much rarer, but is still widespread.

http://www.answers.com/topic/sexual-slavery

"Gangs use voodoo in Nigeria sex trade"

Thursday, May 19, 2005

ATHENS, Greece (AP) - If she runs away from her life of prostitution, her parents will become sick and die.

At least that's what this Nigerian woman believes. The threatened curse, she claims, was part of a voodoo rite performed in her homeland just weeks before she was brought to Greece by a prostitution ring.

"I have no doubt in its power," says the petite 24-year-old, who goes by the alias of Maria and described being forced into seven-night-a-week duty at a flophouse brothel on an Athens back street. "Even if I had a doubt, how could I risk the life of my mother and father?"

Maria's case illustrates one of the least understood corners of the sex slavery underworld: gangs using the perceived potency of native West African voodoo and hexes to hold women in their grip. Recently, however, an unusual alliance has started fighting back.

One of Nigeria's new anti-prostitution inspectors is turning to Christian-affiliated groups to confront a system that -- even by conservative estimates -- may hold sway over at least 10,000 Nigerian women forced to work as prostitutes in Western Europe. <more>

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/africa/05/19/voodoo.sex.ap/

Petition for the closure of the Angeles Prostitution slave camps!

To: The Philippine Government :

This is a worldwide petition calling on the Philippine government to close the prostitution slave camps of Angeles, Philippines.

A woman or Child is raped or killed on average every six seconds in Angeles City, Philippines.
An estimated 150,000 girls work in Angeles City, Philippines as prostitutes, of that about 30,000 are girls as young as six years of age. Despite the fact that prostitution is illegal in Angeles not one person has been convicted of this crime.

The prostitution trade is controlled by foreign gangs who rake in millions while the girls suffer on a bowl of rice a day. Young girls are forced to work up to twenty hours a day and are expected to service up to 100 customers a week. Most of the gangs that run the prostitution trade are foreigners. They pay off corrupt police, military and city hall officials. The girls are locked away to sleep watched over by armed security guards who carry batons, electric prods and shotguns.

The buildings are surrounded by razor wire as used in prisons. The average life expectancy of a bar girl is 25 The gangs control prostitution, drugs, extortion, gun running, paedophile movies and a host of other criminal activities. Anyone who speaks out is quickly disposed of by the gangs. <more>

http://www.petitiononline.com/44441212/petition.html


Normally - I would assume that people are against this. But with some posters arguing against women's studies, etc., and arguing for "Beauty Pornography" you can't take anything for granted.

I think it is more difficult to think of any prostitution as a good thing knowing how women are exploited and used in this manner. Do the men who pay for the "services" of these women know that the women are slaves?

And on a related note - do men know whether the women in pornography are doing that job because it is what they freely choose (IOW could the women make a living doing something else) and that the women themselves get the royalties and benefits?