Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery

" The best book ever written on human trafficking for sexual exploitation "—the basis for the feature film, Trafficked, starring Ashley Judd ( Kevin Bales, president of Free the Slaves ). Every year, hundreds of thousands of women and children are abducted, deceived, seduced, or sold into forced prostitution. These trafficked sex slaves form the backbone of one of the world's most profitable illicit enterprises and generate huge profits for their exploiters, for unlike narcotics, which must be grown, harvested, refined, and packaged, sex slaves require no such "processing, " and can be repeatedly "consumed." In this book, Kara provides a riveting account of his four-continent journey into this unconscionable industry, sharing the moving stories of its victims and revealing the shocking conditions of their exploitation. He draws on his background in finance, economics, and law to provide the first ever business analysis of contemporary slavery worldwide, focusing on its most profitable and barbaric form: sex trafficking. Kara describes the local factors and global economic forces that gave rise to this and other forms of modern slavery over the past two decades and quantifies, for the first time, the size, growth, and profitability of each industry. Finally, he identifies the sectors of the sex trafficking industry that would be hardest hit by specifically designed interventions and recommends the specific legal, tactical, and policy measures that would target these vulnerable sectors and help to abolish this form of slavery, once and for all. The author will donate a portion of the proceeds of this book to the anti-slavery organization, Free the Slaves. "Sex trafficking is more of a problem than most people realize. Read this well-written book and find out."—Kirk Douglas