Illegal, inhuman, and impervious to recession, there is one trade that continues to thrive, just out of sight. The international sex trade criss-crosses the entire globe, a sinister network made up of criminal masterminds, local handlers, corrupt policemen, willfully blind politicians, eager consumers, and countless hapless women and children. In this ground-breaking work of investigative reporting, the celebrated journalist Lydia Cacho follows the trail of the traffickers and their victims from Mexico to Turkey, Thailand to Iraq, Georgia to the UK, to expose the trade's hidden links with the tourist industry, internet pornography, drugs and arms smuggling, the selling of body organs, money laundering, and even terrorism.
This is an underground economy in which a sex slave can be bought for the price of a gun, but Cacho's powerful first-person interviews with mafiosi, pimps, prostitutes, and those who managed to escape from captivity makes it impossible to ignore the terrible human cost of this lucrative exchange.
Shocking and sobering, Slavery Inc, is an exceptional book, both for the colossal scope of its enquiry, and for the tenacious bravery with which Cacho pursues the truth. Lydia Cacho is a Mexican journalist, author and a feminist activist. She has published seven books, one of them is the award-winning Manual to Prevent, Detect and Heal Child Sexual Abuse (Con Mi Hijo No). Currently Ms. Cacho is a columnist with El Universal, the main daily newspaper in Mexico, and a workshop teacher on successful approaches to help trafficking victims and on Community Schools for Peace: a holistic approach to negotiate conflicts.
Roberto Saviano is the author of Gomorrah, a best-selling exposé of the Camorra Mafia in Naples. The 29-year-old first-time author spent five years researching the book, working undercover at a mob-owned construction site and even waiting tables at a Mafia wedding. Following the release of Gomorrah, Saviano received a series of death threats. He has spent the last two years in hiding under police protection.
