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Description of  Sex slaves: The trafficking of women in Asia

This harrowing study of Asia's sex industry explodes popular cultural stereotypes about the continent's strict family values along with the well-maintained lie that the regional sex trade exists solely for the benefit of Western tourists. It exposes the shocking truth of how the sexual double standard is used ruthlessly to exploit those who fall the wrong side of the gender and poverty line. Brown charts the same patterns as they repeat themselves from Mumbai to Tokyo: young girls sold by desperately poor families into lives of sexual slavery. In her account of each link in the chain from the ex-prostitutes too old to keep working who return to their villages to source fresh new recruits to the police whose protection is bought in free sexual favours she paints a horrific portrait of a society which systematically betrays and discards its daughters. Although she does have a tendency to labour rather self-evident points, Brown is at pains to explore her subject as truthfully and thoroughly as possible, giving an overview of the industry rather than a victim's perspective. And her findings present a bleak conclusion: in a society where women's only intimate cross-gender relationships are with their consequently smothered sons, men will continue to seek out pliant, powerless girls over whom they can exercise absolute control. Read more