Efforts By The International Community To Prevent Sex Trafficking

After the fall of the Soviet Union, borders became more porous, leading to increased migration. At the same time, the implementation of privatization measures lead to severe economic problems throughout the former Soviet bloc. These economic problems left many in a newfound state of poverty, which caused many women to be vulnerable to sex trafficking. Although sex trafficking has always existed, it became much more severe after the fall of the Soviet Union, when organized crime also began selling women.In the past, scholars generally agreed that sex trafficking is a simple crime, much the same as any other. The main premise of the "criminal model" was that since sex trafficking is the same as other crimes, a straightforward law enforcement approach must also be used to prevent this crime. Although this model can be useful to a limited degree, it does not take into account the factors which increase women’s vulnerability. However, in the late1990s, scholars began to use the "economic model" to analyze sex trafficking. They thought that trafficked women are similar to a commodity, which men can buy and pimps can sell to earn money. Therefore, sex trafficking initiatives must decrease the supply of and demand for trafficked women, as well as target the causes of women’s vulnerability.This paper will use the economic model to analyze government, international organization, and NGO initiatives which use five kinds of education:formal education, informal education, vocational education, public awareness, and capacity building, to prevent sex trafficking. However, with the exception of capacity building initiatives, this paper will use the economic model to analyze the initiatives. Furthermore, this paper will discuss projects which target both the supply and demand side of sex trafficking, but will not attempt to evaluate whether or not these initiatives have reduced the amount of women trafficked.The importance of comparing China and India lays in the profound power these massive countries have to impact the entire world’s security in the future. As these two countries rapidly develop, their influence on the worldwide sex trafficking problem will continue to increase. Although Nepalese women are often trafficked to India, a recent development in the past year is the trafficking of Nepalese women to Tibet and China. This phenomenon indicates the connectivity of India and China’s sex trafficking problem, as well as the effect they could have on Asia and the world as a whole.The questions this thesis will answer include:What similarities and differences exist between the causes of sex trafficking problems in China and India? What unique characteristics do Chinese and Indian educational initiatives have? Furthermore, why are the projects’implementation methods and channels different? And finally, how can China and India increase the effectiveness of the initiatives?...