“Their passports are taken. They are told they are here to undertake sexual services and they will not be paid’: How long can the sex industry deny trafficking?

Cross-posted from: Melinda Tankard Reist
Originally published: 18.09.15

AFP reveals sex trafficking based in Sydney brothels

How can the sex industry continue to deny the reality of trafficking in this country? Of course it is in their interests to play it down, given their brothels are hungry for as many women as possible to meet demand. The AFP has provided evidence of trafficking in NSW brothels to a parliamentary inquiry. Collective Shout has made a submission to the Inquiry into the Regulation of Brothels, authored by Dr Caroline Norma, extracts below (complete submissions with references here.)
Read more “Their passports are taken. They are told they are here to undertake sexual services and they will not be paid’: How long can the sex industry deny trafficking?

Women and the Drug Traffickers by @andrews_Cath

Cross-posted from: Hiding under the bed is not the answer
Originally published: 26.05.12

Women’s participation in drug trafficking has recently made the headlines thanks to Miss Bala (Gerardo Naranjo, 2011) a Mexican film about a beauty pageant wannabe who is kidnapped and forced to become a drug runner for a gang of traffickers in Tijuana, received critical acclaim at Cannes last year. The screen play is loosely based on a real life incident in 2008 in which beauty queen Laura Zuñiga was arrested aboard a lorry full of explosives along with drug traffickers in Guadalajara, Jalisco. Similarly, La Reina del Sur(The Queen of the South), was one of this year’s most popular soap operas produced by television network Telemundo (USA) in conjunction with the Antena 3 network (Spain) and RTI Producciones (Colombia). The script was based on a novel by Spanish author Arturo Pérez Reverte and depicts the rise of Teresa Mendoza, a young woman from Culiacán, Sinaloa, Mexico, who becomes the most powerful drug trafficker in southern Spain. It seems likely that Mendoza is based on the example of Sandra Ávila Beltrón, alias the Queen of the Pacific, ex member of the Sinaloa cartel, who is currently in a Mexican prison waiting extradition to the US.

While undoubtedly showing how some women have become involved in drug gangs, neither screenplay could be said to accurately portray the complex realities of women’s experience in drug trafficking. Unsurprisingly, women’s participation in trafficking imitates their roles in other, more licit activities and clearly reflects Mexico’s dominant cultural attitudes towards them.


Read more Women and the Drug Traffickers by @andrews_Cath