In Modern Bondage: Sex Trafficking in the Americas : National and Regional Overview of Central America and the Caribbean : Belize, Costa Rica, ... (International and Comparative Criminal Law)

Sexual slavery of younger women and children is rapidly becoming the most profitable criminal activity after drug trafficking. The situation is made worse by the fact that under the legal systems of most states involved those trafficked are not deemed to be victims but rather undocumented criminals involved in an often-illegal activity. Very rarely are they offered any support or legal backing. Trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation is also an intricate part of the intensifying illegal immigration business often operated by large organised crime networks. The United Nations estimates that as many as two million women and children have been trafficked and forced into sexual servitude all over the world. This problem is fuelled by poverty, indifference to the rights and needs of women and children, and political upheavals in various parts of the world. Just as liberalised borders and advances in transportation and communication open new international markets for licit goods, they also make it easier to trade in illicit goods, including human beings. The International Human Rights Law Institute (IHRLI) has studied this problem since early 1999. It soon found that, while human trafficking is being studied in key regions, such as Asia and Europe, efforts to detect the level of trafficking and its effects in the Latin American and the Caribbean regions were almost non-existent. In response IHRLI and its partner CIM-Inter-American Commission of Women (Comision Interamericana de Mujeres: CIM) -- have worked closely with governmental officials, regional authorities and NGOs with special expertise on the ground in these countries. The Inter-American Children?s Institute (Instituto Interamericano del Nino: IIN) is an additional partner in the Americas study. This book presents the result of this trailblazing study. Based upon individual country reports from Belize, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua & Panama, the book also includes a regional overview highlighting the interplay and interrelationships between trafficking within an individual country and the larger Central American region. It identifies both existing problems in current efforts to confront trafficking and highlights the most successful efforts or best practices adopted by some of the countries. The report also includes recommendations on how to address the problem of sex trafficking.