According to author/journalist Victor Malarek (presented on Nightline) we are in our forth wave of women and children sex trafficking victims being shipped into the US.
1. The first wave took place in the 1970s and was composed mostly of Asian women from Thailand and the Philippines;
2. The second wave took place in the early 1980s and was composed mainly of African women from Ghana and Nigeria;
3. The third wave happened in the mid-to-late 1980s and was composed mainly of women from Latin America, such as Brazil, Colombia and the Dominican Republic;
4. The fourth and current wave is composed of women from Central and Eastern Europe. Under full conditions of globalization, this fourth wage occurs at a speed and in proportion never seen before: every year, approximately 175,000 women from the former Soviet republics are trafficked into the sex trade. Ten years ago, the fourth wave had barely started. Today, these women constitute 25% of the global sex trade. Of course, this entire industry is under the control of various organized crime syndicates collaborating with each other, making the sex trade a truly global venture whereby women from peripheral areas are trafficked through transnational criminal networks and end up as prostitutes in core countries.
To read more go to our Recent Articles section: Interview with Victor Malarek