From Russia without Love: The "Fourth Wave" of Global Human Trafficking

Demokratizatsiya, Winter 2004 by Granville, Johanna

According to Bales, rehabilitation workers report that in reaction to the abuse from fifteen men a day, the girls exhibit lethargy, confusion, aggression, self-loathing, depression, self-abuse, hallucinations, suicide attempts, and full-blown psychoses. The rehabilitation workers also report that the girls suffer from emotional instability, are unable to trust or form relationships, are unable to learn and develop normally, and are unable to readjust to the world outside the brothel (59). Psychological counseling is hard to obtain in Thailand, a country where the cultural pressure is strong to keep any mental problems hidden and to "mind your own business" (yaa suek) (50). Hence, we do not have reliable statistics about the long-term psychological impact of forced prostitution on the Thai girls.

In a bizarre pattern reminiscent of the so-called "Stockholm syndrome," many prostitutes voluntarily return to the brothels after their release. Their method of coping and staying alive becomes to identify obsessively with the needs and goals of the pimp, thus warping their own psyche in such a way that they come to sympathize with their own tormenters.

Bales informs the reader that a few rehabilitation centers run by charities do exist in Thailand, but not nearly enough. In a coda at the end of the book, Bales provides a list of five things the reader can do to help stop enforced prostitution and trafficking, including joining the organization Anti-Slavery International.

In contrast to Bales, Global Human Smuggling, edited by David Kyle and Rey Koslowski, focuses on Western Europe, Mexico, Russia, and China, drawing more often on objective statistics than on personal stories. Considering the large number of chapters (thirteen), written by several different university professors, the volume is very well integrated. The editors have done a superb job highlighting the salient themes in the introduction. Human smuggling is a much more complex, global phenomenon than many realize; consequently, a multi-faceted approach must be taken to curb it. The trafficking problem is exacerbated by multiple sets of interlocking problems such as widening social inequality, state corruption, and ethnic and gender discriminations. The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) estimates that transnational human smuggling, hardly a global issue in the 1980s, is now a multibillion-dollar trade worldwide, rivaling the drug trade. The IOM estimated total global revenues in 1997 of up to $7 billion, up from a 1994 UN estimate of $3.5 billion (4). The editors argue that, rather than simply demonizing the smugglers-some of whom actually provide safe passage out of hazardous situations and dismal places-one must look closely at the symbiosis between corrupt state officials and the smugglers. Moreover, some measures taken to control illegal migration, such as tighter border controls, do not solve the smuggling problem, and in some cases, merely render the smuggling operations more lucrative. The illegal migrants must be stopped at their point of origin, not just in transit. Economic sanctions should be imposed on the sending and transit countries that tolerate traffickers and fail to cooperate with U.S. efforts to apprehend the aliens (8).