Top 13 Books About Sex Trafficking Updated 04 /2024

Human trafficking is a $150 billion business every year. There are places where people, women, and children are sold. This can be found in every country. Despite the fact that the problem is widespread and people are trying to make people aware, the industry seems to be growing. Women and young girls are especially at risk, but all people who are poor and desperate are at risk. The following are five books that everyone should read to learn more about human trafficking and the people who are caught in it at every level:

Human Trafficking Around the World: Hidden in Plain Sight

Year published: 2013

Author(s): Stephanie Hepburn and Rita Simon

In each chapter of this book, we learn about trafficking and how it's being dealt with in 24 different countries. These countries include Australia and France as well as Japan, India, Mexico, and South Africa. This makes it one of the most in-depth studies of human trafficking that you can find. Hepburn and Simon write a book that includes both statistical data and interviews and personal stories from both traffickers, people who have been trafficked, and people who work to stop trafficking. The detailed study also explains why people are trafficked in each country on a cultural, economic, and geopolitical level, as well as the problems with the law that are stopping real change.

Stephanie Hepburn is a free-lance journalist who has a background in law, but she doesn't work for anyone. Rita Simon is a professor at a university, an author, and the editor of a magazine about gender issues. The two authors have written another book together, called Women's Roles and Statuses the World Over, which is about women all over the world.

The Slave Next Door: Human Trafficking and Slavery in America Today

Year published: 2009

Author(s): Kevin Bales and Ron Soodalter

The Slave Next Door is a book that focuses on human trafficking in the United States. It gives readers a close look at how common slavery is in everyday American communities. With stories and research from people like slaves, traffickers, slaveholders, law enforcement, and more, Bales and Soodalter open up a "foreign" problem that's often thought of as a problem in another country, like in Africa or Asia. All over the world, even in a country that calls itself the "land of the free."

On modern slavery and human trafficking, Kevin Bales is a professor and a very good person. He helped start the US branch of the world's oldest human rights group, Anti-Slavery International. On the board of the Abraham Lincoln Institute is Ron Soodalter, who is a writer, the president of the board, and a lecturer on the history of the United States and how people are trafficked in.

Girls Like Us: Fighting for a World Where Girls Are Not for Sale: A Memoir

Year published: 2012

Author(s): Rachel Lloyd

Rachel Lloyd was a teenager when she made it through the commercial sex industry in England, eventually getting away from her pimp. She has spent her whole life trying to help other people, and in Girls Like Us, she talks about the world survivors come from and the history of her nonprofit organization, Girls Educational and Mentoring Services (GEMS). This book tells a personal story about human trafficking and the illegal sex trade, but it also shows how good things are being done to fight it.

At the beginning of 1998, Rachel LLoyd came up with GEMS. She has also worked to change laws that punish child sex workers. Girls Like Us is her only book right now.

Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy

Year published: 2012

Author(s): Kevin Bales

Kevin Bales, the author of The Slave Next Door, is back on his own for Disposal People. There are stories in this book that come from countries like Pakistan and India, as well as from the United States. Because of the huge growth in population, many people are poor, desperate, and vulnerable to trafficking and slavery. Modern slavery is different from slavery in the past because these slaves aren't seen as long-term investments. This is based on a number of case studies. They are cheap because a trafficker or slave owner can always get someone else.

All of the money that Bales makes from this book goes to help fight against slavery.

Sold

Year published: 2006

Author(s): Patricia McCormick

It was a National Book Award Finalist in 2007 and one of NPR's Top 100 Books of 2007. Sold is the only book on this list that is fiction, and it was also on the list. Sold is broken up into short stories that tell the story of a 13-year-old girl from Nepal who was sold into prostitution in India by her stepfather. The book, which is written in free verse, is both disturbing and gripping. McCormick went to Nepal and India to do research for her book. She interviewed women and gathered information to make sure the book was accurate and realistic. In 2014, Emma Thompson made a movie about the book.

Patricia McCormick is a journalist and a writer from the United States. In the past, she has been a finalist for the National Book Award two times. When she's not writing, she's writing other books, like "Never Fall Down" and "I Am Malala: How One Girl Stood Up for Education and Changed the World."

“God in a Brothel: An Undercover Journey into Sex Trafficking and Rescue” (2011)

This is a nonfiction story about Daniel Walker's research into the global sex industry. This is what he does: He tells the stories of people who get people out of trafficking rings. The book talks about the horrifying stories of people who were saved from sex trafficking, how they were tortured, and how they came back into the world. It also tells the heartbreaking story of the people who keep living in this way. There are a lot of people who sell sex in this book, and Walker shows them all to the reader very close up and personal.

The more you know about a global problem, the more you can help people understand it. People who read these books about human trafficking can learn more about modern-day slavery so that more can be done to help stop it.

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