World Text Analysis Essay: Rough Draft

The film, Slumdog Millionaire, pulls back the curtain on India’s sex slave industry. The supporting character, Latika, is depicted as being trafficked into the sex slave industry, being trained like a courtesan with the intention of being sold to the top bidder for her prized virginity. According to Indian native Dr. Joseph De’souza, this film, “[H]ighlighted the non-shiny part of India. Far from exploiting poverty, these are stories about India that demand a global response – especially for the sake of the children. This is the India of 80% of the population – the India of the slums, the outcasts, the exploited, and of abject poverty. The India where Dalit, tribal, and poor children are sold into the sex trade.” According to the Not For Sale Campaign, 27 million people are enslaved today.

Louise Brown’s Sex Slaves: the trafficking of women In Asia discusses the socioeconomic conditions of Asia which cultivates human trafficking. According to Brown, the first large-scale commercial trafficking involved Chinese women who were sold to brothels in Malaya, Singapore, and Siam (modern-day Thailand) for the sexual servicing of unaccompanied Chinese male migrant laborers. In World War II, Japan gained notoriety for its recruitment of 100,000 girls and young women, mainly Korean, for use as prostitutes servicing military personnel at a rate of seventy soldiers a day. Many of these so-called “comfort women” either committed suicide or were murdered when it became evident that Japan was losing the war. During the Vietnam War in the 1960s, American soldiers were sent to Thailand for Rest and Recuperation, generating Thailand’s substantial sex industry. Today, Thailand’s sex industry is unofficial partners with its country’s tourism industry in advertising to Western businessmen, who come flocking by the thousands every year. Girls as young as eight are sold into human trafficking by impoverished guardians, imprisoned in closed brothels until they are old enough to walk the streets discreetly. Though officially illegal, Thailand’s government condones human trafficking, as tourism accounts for six percent of the country’s economy.