World Savvy Monitor

Girls are at high risk of sexual exploitation, by family members and others.  

Teenage girls in developing countries are vulnerable to sex trafficking as well.  Lacking options, they often resort to prostitution, or are forced into doing so. 

• The UN has reported that up to 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders, most for the purposes of sex slavery.  Eighty percent are women and girls; half are minors. 

• Some are kidnapped into forced sex labor; others begin as voluntary economic migrants and end up resorting to prostitution; some are tricked into servitude and debt bondage.  

• Most trafficked girls come from East and Southeast Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Sub Saharan Africa.  It is estimated that the sex trade makes up 14% of Thailand’s total GDP.  

• Many of these girls end up in the developed world.  U.S. Immigration officials estimate that up to 50,000 of them enter the U.S. every year.

Another form of predation takes the form of mail order brides.  These are women who are “purchased” by men in other countries.  Again, this type of predation derives from women having few options for advancement or even survival in some societies.  Consider this testimonial posted on goodwife.com quoted by Joni Seager:

“We, as (Western) men, are more and more wanting to step back from the types of (Western) women we meet now.  With many women taking on the ‘me first’ feminist agenda and the man continuing to take a back seat to her desire for power and control many men are turned off by this and look back to having a more traditional woman as our partner.”

Next:  The Girl Child:  Body Image Issues