How does one do that? I mean if she had spent a month doing it it would sound OK but what did she do for the other 11 months?

“1999 where Thai women were held against their will in Auckland brothels. ”

Reality check! after a high profile campaign involving social workers, newspapers, police and immigration exactly two women were located. Yup TWO! And the cops reported that they did not believe their stories, the women had worked out that if they turned themselves in they got a free airfare home.

“If no one knows where these brothels are,”

Gosh that a problem – oh wait no its not…….

Want to know where they are? go to a local gas station, buy a copy of NZ truth, turn to the adverts. You will find adverts for approx 60 brothels in front of you, hard to find yup!

“it was “implausible” to believe women and children were not being brought into the country to work as prostitutes”

Lets be clear on this, are women being brought into NZ to work as prostuties agains the rules of the PRA 2003. Yes no doubt about it.

Are Children ? There has not been a single case every found of this happening. All detected underage prostution has involved NZ Citizens.

Do the women who are being brought in know what up? yes of course they do, a Thai sex worker can make in NZ in six weeks the same amount of money that she can make in six months in Thailand. They jump at the chance.

I support this review, and when its over I expect us to wave at the us state department, and we will use only one finger!

Sb

I read your book lately (Sex at the Margins), and I think I found out what all the controversy is about. I think that you have a very strict definition of forced prostitution. For instance, from what I understand is that you admit that many migrant prostitutes go into debt to travel to another country and that they have to take several months or years to pay off those debts. You don’t see that as particularly sinister but others would call that debt bondage.

You also talk about prostitutes who are sheltered by nuns whose decision to return to their pimps is respected by the nuns. The nuns see the women as ‘trafficked’ when the women say of themselves that they have been forced or deceived, and that this is also the definition of GAATW. I think if you use this definition then indeed the scale of human trafficking becomes a lot smaller because from what I read forced prostitutes are often very loyal to their (boyfriend-)pimps. A sort of emotional attachment, like in a religious cult. The women indeed don’t identify themselves as being forced. But others would see it that way, the women themselves could see it that way afterwards. Some are blinded by love. And debts could be really tricky when the ‘service providers’ charge high amounts of money for all kinds of things: condoms, a place to live, food, clothes….. Also think about high interest rates (80% per year for instance). Things of which the prostitutes don’t think about in advance but a situation where they are slowly sucked into….. not realising how unfair it all is, still feeling loyal.

By the way…. (I visited another prostitute lately )