Trafficking of women and children for sex slavery is a growing aspect of organized crime. According to transnational crime expert Phil Williams, it is often responsible for funding other aspects of criminal enterprise, like trafficking in arms and drugs.
Targeting the most vulnerable countries and communities, sex traffickers increasingly prey on Indigenous women and children, making false promises of normal employment as nannies and housekeepers, then brutally coercing the victims into sex slavery. Even in the United States and Canada, Indigenous women and children are vastly more vulnerable than non-indigenous.
As the premier international organization combating this aspect of organized crime, Prostitution Research and Education has taken on mainstream advertising that profits from sex trafficking, forcing such corporations as Craigslist to remove adult services from its website. Currently, PRE — along with federal law enforcement — is focused on Village Voice Media (publishers of Seattle Weekly, San Francisco Weekly and LA Weekly) for aiding and abetting this abhorrent criminal enterprise.
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