Almost every country in the world cherishes its own respective tale of gaining independence over time from the rule of some other entity, and many ethnic groups evoke a shared history of fighting for their freedom. History books and national narratives remind students and citizens that slavery has ended and is a practice of the past. However, the business of selling other human beings remains quite alive and pulses through every single nation in the world. Human trafficking exists as an international epidemic that is not exclusive to impoverished nations, though its casualties are almost always the poor, and more often than not, poor women and children. Activists, politicians, and the media have encouraged the general public to become more engaged in the movement to abolish what is, without a doubt, modern-day slavery, but often provide conflicting information with regard to who falls under the category of those worthy of our attention and, subsequently, protection.

Known within some circles as "white slavery," sexual exploitation in the form of slavery is one the most notorious forms of human trafficking. The term "white slavery" was coined in 19^th century Britain to refer to the enslavement of young children for the sake of sexual servitude within the United Kingdom. As the concept became more widely disseminated, the context surrounding its origins dissolved, and later relied primarily on racist and xenophobic concepts of good and evil, positioning the white woman as a symbol of virginal innocence and purity and her captors, most often portrayed as Middle Eastern or Chinese, as sexually insatiable symbols of brutality and greed. The fear of "white slavery" was so great that it compelled government legislation. In 1910, James Robert Mann, a U.S. Representative for the State of Illinois, penned the White-Slave Traffic Act, which prohibited the interstate transport of women for "immoral purposes." Of course, laws like the aforementioned were never enacted prior to the Civil War, when black women were bought, sold, and used as concubines for white masters and their sons, and vigilante policing of those who raped black women following the end of U.S. plantation slavery did not exist.

In the present, however, depictions of "white slavery" involve women of color. Though there are thousands of white women from Eastern Europe who are forced into a life as sex workers and domestics, they make up a small portion of the international market for human slaves. This is due primarily to international racial distribution (global demographic data shows there are more non-whites than whites, with a majority of the world population inhabiting Asia) and the unstable economic and political state of many nations that have predominately non-white inhabitants, also known as the "Global South" (formerly referred to by the term "Third World"). This has a profound impact on the methods used to discuss and combat sexual slavery, primarily with regard to defining the victims, prosecuting the traffickers, and providing programs and enacting laws to prevent its continued growth worldwide.

Much like the debates waged during the antebellum period in the United States, the subject of slavery proves to be difficult to discuss, particularly when the origins and conditions of the enslaved are not solidly established. For example, in a 2006 report issued by the U.S. Department of State Human Trafficking and Smuggling Center, it is estimated that between "600,000 to 820,000 people are trafficked globally each year," though considering the clandestine nature of this form of international commerce, as well as the fact that those involved often end up in jobs that fall outside of the formal labor sector, it is impossible to derive an accurate number. In addition, racial and ethnic demographic features of the population women and children enslaved for sexual purposes provide additional challenges for abolitionists for several reasons, including but not limited to:

Cultural relativism: Nations have different ages of consent, and some governments fail to seek active punishment towards those who engage in sexual liaisons with people who are younger than the age of consent due to difference in ethnic customs (i.e. what is a "proper" age to marry). According to 2005 statistics, the nations with a federally-assigned age of consent set at 14 years old or younger include: Albania, Argentina, Austria, Bolivia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Croatia, Ecuador, Estonia, Guyana, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lichtenstein, Lithuania, Madagascar, Mexico, Moldova, Nigeria, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, the Philippines, Peru, Portugal, Serbia, South Korea, Spain, and Syria. The majority of Middle Eastern countries (and some African and Asian nations like the Sudan and Pakistan) have no legislation regarding an age of consent as, according to law, one must be married to have sex in the first place. In addition, definitions of "sex" vary internationally.

Sex Tourism: In order to avoid alienating tourists who provide significant revenue for some countries as a result of somewhat unstable economies, some governments do not progressively prosecute pimps and customers engaged in the sexual exploitation of women and children. According to a study by Carol Smolenksi, "In the Philippines, sex tourism and the trafficking of Filipino girls and women continue to be used to spur economic development," and as a result of the financial success that sex tourism has proven to be in countries like the Philippines and Thailand, other nations have followed suit (Flowers, 151). Sex tourism is further assisted via "age of consent" laws in the respective nations where this form of sexual exploitation is common.

Casualties of War: Many women and children are enslaved for sexual purposes during war in order to physically symbolize domination over a nation or group of people (i.e. Japan's use of "comfort women" from China and Korea during WWII) and/or even as an element of ethnic cleansing (i.e. in the Balkans and Sudan). According to Amnesty International, "women and girls constitute more than half of the refugees in the world today," and "are particularly vulnerable to crimes of rape and sexual violence." In Darfur, Sudan, for example, "women and girls as young as eight years old have been abducted during attacks and forced into sexual slavery in the Janjawid military camps." During some instances of war, it is a common practice for soldiers to marry their victims so that they have exclusive sexual access to their "wives" and do not have to share them with other soldiers (Miers, 730). These methods used in order to attain women (and their offspring) as sexual slaves are especially difficult to prosecute as they are so widespread, unaccounted for, and, are, more or less, considered acceptable practices during war.

Mail-Order Marriages: Marriages arranged via long-distance correspondence (i.e. the internet, mail-order, etc) are also problematic with regard to human trafficking as they are generally consensual affairs. The typical scenario involves a bride-to-be from a less-than-optimal economic situation seeking to marry a man from a better economic situation. This "marrying-up" is often transnational, the bride pool mainly consisting of women from developing nations using marriage as an option to gain citizenship elsewhere. The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services reports that up to 6,000 such marriages occur between foreign brides and U.S. citizens each year. Presumably, as a result of feelings of guilt or being perceived as ungrateful, fear of revocation of her citizenship by marriage, and, in some cases, language barriers, many mail-order brides may find themselves in precarious positions (sexual enslavement, physical abuse, and deprivation of resources, including contact with relatives), but with limited options for legal recourse.

Sex Slave vs. Prostitute: Considering that in many countries prostitution is illegal on its face, women and children who are subjected to sexual slavery can often be mistaken by law as merely prostitutes. There are many women who become prostitutes by choice, though the concept of "choice" in this instance rests of shaky ground, especially considering that it is sometimes made as a result of lack of education, a dire economic situation, psychological problems (i.e. childhood abuse), sexual assault, broken family home (i.e. the loss of a husband and/or provider to death in war), and/or as a last resort due to limited job opportunities. Of course, this does not apply to all women who go into the profession of prostitution, but is certainly true of some. Women and children involved in sexual slavery are, by definition, lacking agency as they are technically slaves, but in many nations, including the United States, can be charged under the same laws reserved for those who go into prostitution by choice, and, when applicable, deported.

The aforementioned situations that often feed into conditions of sexual slavery are merely a fraction of reasons why defining a state of sexual servitude is so difficult. For most legislators, the deciding factor to determine "slavery" versus consensual participation rests on motivation of the woman or child in question. If the woman or child had prior knowledge of her/his future status as a prostitute, some would consider this person more or less responsible for the conditions that result. However, in the instance that one is promised one form of prostitution, but, instead, is forced to work in deplorable conditions, is not given the option of free movement or even the right to desert the profession if she/he so wished, and is not paid enough to sustain his/her life without dependency upon his/her "employer," this is slavery, no matter the initial reason that compelled one to become a prostitute.

The prospect of identifying a victim of sexual slavery becomes null and void when those directly involved in perpetuating the abuse remain at large and unpunished. As demonstrated by the failed attempts made by governments worldwide, it is a difficult task to find and prosecute traffickers and pimps, especially considering that the entire business is run illegally and out of the view of some, though not all, state officials. In many cases, the state plays a direct role in the trafficking of women and children, either by ignoring pleas from refugees fleeing such conditions, by not enacting laws to punish pimps and traffickers (some laws only punish the person providing the sexual services and not the pimp), and even by accepting money and rewards as bribes to allow for the practice to continue. Another problem with assigning a criminal status to a pimp or trafficker is the relationship of the perpetrator to the victim. According to Cudore L. Snell's report "Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Youth in South Africa," "a wide range of individuals and groups at all levels in society contribute to exploitative practices of children . . . including a parent" and "communities [who] are aware of child sexual exploitation and justify this as a 'necessary evil' in a society where children are increasingly needed to help supplement the family income or to provide for themselves" (Snell, 509). The case in which the criminal and the victim are acquaintances, friends, or relatives adds a unique problem because not only will the abuse go unreported due to this close relationship, but the victim may assume that abuse is acceptable because it is administered by someone he or she knows.

Social attitudes regarding the traffickers do not help either. In an interview with reporters prior to the commencement of the 2006 World Cup in Germany, FIFA president Sepp Blatter, when asked about speculations that more than 40,000 women would be trafficked to Germany and forced to serve as prostitutes for the fans, replied "We in FIFA, we are not responsible for the morality and the ethics of the whole population of the world. . . This is not our duty, our duty is football" (Associated Press). His statement was quite ironic considering that around the same time, FIFA, with Blatt at the helm, had called for a ban on racism in football, clearly taking a step to regulate the "morality and ethics" of players, coaches, and fans worldwide.

Members of the academic community, legislators and multiple worldwide and local agencies are working on initiatives to prevent human trafficking for sexual purposes and to assist the women and children presently serving as sex slaves. Yet these attempts are often halted by opposition, sometimes even by organizations fighting for the rights of those affected. The most common example involves objection to legislation and the terminology within used with regard to women and children affected by human trafficking for sexual purposes. Some feminist sects and sex worker rights activists reject the Trafficking Victims Protection Act in the United States, stating that it seeks to condemn prostitution and further stigmatize those who choose sex work as a career, and additionally object to the frequent employment of the word "victim" when discussing sex work, as they feel it is often used to blur the lines between sexual enslavement and employment. Though considering the projected amount of women and children that ARE victims of sexual enslavement, particularly women and children from the developing world, and the fact the prostitution is still illegal in the United States, the argument falls a bit short. There is certainly the possibility that the prospective laws on human trafficking may require terminological re-working, but it is highly problematic if such minor criticisms pose obstacles to laws that may benefit the greater good.

Some activists and officials also call for a legalization of prostitution in order to put an end to human trafficking for sexual purposes. Though this suggestion is somewhat fitting for more developed countries with formal governments, stable economies, and constitutional equality for men, women, and people of all races, it is an argument that comes from a place of privilege and underestimates the problems that may arise if prostitution is legalized in some nations. For example, as South Africa is set to host the 2010 FIFA World Cup, its Police Commissioner, Jackie Selebi, advocated for the government to “come up with innovative ways of controlling public drinking and prostitution,” suggesting a legalization of both activities because, as they are legal in Germany, where the 2006 World Cup was held, the state controlled it (Press Trust of India). Yet considering that South Africa has a high frequency of sexual exploitation of both women and children, one of the largest economic chasms between rich and poor in the world, the highest number of reported rapes in the globe, and boasts a 20% HIV/AIDS infection rate amongst its adult population, the nation cannot be compared to Germany. While legalizing prostitution indefinitely would lead to more government reform of the profession, including health screenings and an increase in safer sex practices, it, by no means, would lead to an end of human trafficking for sexual purposes.

Some efforts to question the arguments made in statements on human trafficking are quite significant, however, especially considering that such criticism is made to point out the implicit sexist and racist aspects of the rhetoric. Activist Chandra Mohanty notes the evidence of a “colonial gaze” within language used within popular discourse revolving around the fight against human trafficking. Mohanty states that “third world women as a group are automatically and necessarily defined as "‘not progressive,’ ‘ignorant,' ‘backward’” and completely unconscious of their rights (Dozema, 17). By frequently evoking the trafficking of women in reports on other nations, and many times still portraying the trafficker (though not the customer) as the racial and moral “other,” many people working to draw attention to the problem are subconsciously aiding it by encouraging and propagating racism and sexism toward women of developing nations. In addition, many activists point out that by focusing the attention primarily on women, the victimization of men and boys by the same industry is marginalized, resulting in the placement of both pity and blame on the female subjects within the discourse (Miers, 731).

Though debates still rage over the exact amount of women and children that are bought, sold, and used each year as sex slaves, one thing is clear: the problem exists. Many differ with regard to its extent, whom it affects, and how to solve it, but in the longrun, the focus should be on how to prevent the increase of the human trafficking business of all sorts, and how to help those who find a way out. On Friday, April 21, 2007, a report released by the New York State Office of Children and Family Services estimates that “New York City is home to more than 2,000 sexually exploited children under 18.” According to the report, the majority of those children were young black girls, 85% of whom “had some contact with the child welfare system, mostly through abuse and neglect proceedings” (Feldman, 1). Slavery is affecting the same communities that it did 200 years ago, people of color, the poor, and the politically deserted. As history repeats itself, let us not get bogged down in definitions of sexual enslavement, regional differences, or a fear of airing dirty laundry. Instead, something must be done so that the slaves of today are part of a story of freedom in the future. It all begins with knowledge.

To educate yourself on human trafficking and how you can help eradicate it, check out the following organizations:

Human Trafficking. org (www.humantrafficking.org)

The American Anti Slavery Group (www.iabolish.com)

Free the Slaves (www.freetheslaves.net)

The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (www.catwinternational.org)

Amnesty International (www.amnesty.org)

United Nations Women Watch (www.un.org/womenwatch)