Sex and Soccer: The World Cup vice trade

October 16, 2009 — Updated 1701 GMT (0101 HKT)
By Chris Murphy
For CNN
(CNN) — The beginning of the World Cup in South Africa next June kicks-off a festival of football on the pitch, but there are a wealth of issues for the host country to tackle off the field too.
Up to half-a-million fans are expected to [...]

UK: Sex trafficking is no illusion

Nick Davies argues that the problem of sex trafficking has been exaggerated. This is the last thing trafficked women need

Comments (362)
Rahila Gupta, guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 20 October 2009 11.00 BST
An article on trafficking into the sex trade has been written by the investigative reporter Nick Davies, whose reputation will lend authority to it – although it [...]

UK: Trafficking: we can learn from victims

A report in today’s Guardian suggests sex trafficking has been exaggerated; but it must not be reduced to a numbers game
Comments (89)
Helen Bamber
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 20 October 2009 22.30 BST
Knowledge about the wider picture of trafficking can be accumulated only over time and gleaned from a detailed and dedicated approach to the cases of individual victims. [...]

UK: Sex trafficking: a futile war of statistics

The descent of a Newsnight discussion on the sex trade into a shouting match shows how difficult it is to debate the issue
Comments (130)
Denis MacShane
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 21 October 2009 16.30 BST
Anyone see the ding-dong between Jeremy Paxman and Denis MacShane on Newsnight? I was there. It was an utterly weird experience to be in the [...]

UK: Have sex traffic levels been exaggerated?

The Guardian newspaper has said that the problem of sex trafficking has been exaggerated and that the number of people who have been brought into the UK and forced against their will into prostitution is much smaller than claimed.
Jeremy Paxman talks to former minister for Europe, Dennis McShane, and Nikki Adams, of the English Collective [...]

UK: A bad bill for sex workers

A lack of trafficking evidence highlights the flaws in a policing and crime bill that fails to distinguish between types of sex work
Elizabeth Pisani
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 21 October 2009 10.00 BST
Last night, I went to a play about sex trafficking at the Arcola theatre. The programme notes: “While elements of It Felt Empty When the Heart [...]

UK: Inquiry fails to find single trafficker who forced anybody into prostitution

Comments (56)
Nick Davies, The Guardian, Tuesday 20 October 2009
The UK’s biggest ever investigation of sex trafficking failed to find a single person who had forced anybody into prostitution in spite of hundreds of raids on sex workers in a six-month campaign by government departments, specialist agencies and every police force in the country.
The failure has [...]

UK: Prostitution and trafficking – the anatomy of a moral panic

Nick Davies
The Guardian, Tuesday 20 October 2009
There is something familiar about the tide of misinformation which has swept through the subject of sex trafficking in the UK: it flows through exactly the same channels as the now notorious torrent about Saddam Hussein’s weapons.
In the story of UK sex trafficking, the conclusions of academics who [...]

MA: Prosecutor: Blood ties ex-beau to stripper’s death

By Laurel J. Sweet
Tuesday, October 13, 2009 – Updated 4h ago
Prosecutors revealed today they found a spot of slain exotic dancer Sheila Dos Santos’ blood on a sneaker belonging to the spurned ex-boyfriend accused of slashing her to death on the doorstep of her Everett apartment building.
Dos Santos, 26, the stripper known as “Kelly” at [...]

Older Stories: Beyond Immigrant Brothels

by Juhu Thukral on October 2, 2006
At the age of 17, Cathy* came to the United States from Thailand, expecting to work off a debt. As soon as she arrived, though, her traffickers demanded the money. If they weren’t paid, they said, she would have to go into prostitution.
Cathy was able to escape on her [...]