Breaking down of Sexual Slavery

Sexual Slavery
It is slavery for the sole purpose of sexual exploitation of a person. It can vary from single-person ownership, ritual slavery or forced prostitution.
Concubinage is a form of sexual slavery: the “concubines” spend their lives in sexual servitude under their husband/spouse. In commentary of the Rome Statute, Mark Klamberg, a PhD and lecturer of international law, states “Sexual Slavery is a particular kind of enslavement which includes the limitations to one’s autonomy, freedom of movement and power to decide matters relating to one’s sexual activity. Thus, this crime also includes forced marriages, domestic servitude, or other forced labor that ultimately involves forced sexual activity. In contrast to the crime of rape, which is a completed offense, sexual slavery constitutes a continuing offense…Forms of sexual slavery can, for example, be practices such as the detention of women in “rape camps” or “comfort stations”; forced temporary “marriages” to soldiers and other practices involving the treatment of women as chattel, and as such, violations of the peremptory norm prohibiting slavery.”

There are different types of sexual slavery:

• Sex Trafficking
• Commercial Sexual Exploitation of children
• Child Prostitution
• Child Pornography
• Child Sex Tourism
• Forced Prostitution
• Forced Marriage

Historical cases range from ancient Rome, Asia, the Arab Slave Trade, the United States and World War I and II.

Numbers: Official numbers and statistics vary worldwide; in 2001, the International Organization for Migration estimated 400,000 and Soroptimist states that 800,000 women and children are trafficked across international borders each year. Adult women make up the bulk of the numbers, followed by pre-pubescent girls and then a small number of pre-pubescent boys and men.
Girls are women are lured into sexual slavery in various ways; some a lured in with promises of lucrative, legitimate work as waitresses, hairdressers, etc. Others are promised a better life, better marriages. Other girls and women are forced, tricked or sold into sexual slavery by their family, spouses, boyfriends, or friends.
The traffickers often threaten or promise freedom to their victims in order to keep them under control. These victims are often chained to “debt” (usually the price of which the trafficker, pimp or Madame had paid the victim for), these victims are forced into sexual slavery to pay for their debt and freedom. Victims of sexual and human trafficking experience various psychological and physical torture, degradation; more than often these manifest into Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, HIV/AIDS, drug or substance abuse and other physical ailments.

Resources:
“Sexual Slavery.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Web. 15 May 2016.
“Sex Trafficking | Human Trafficking for Sex – End Slavery Now.” Sex Trafficking | Human Trafficking for Sex – End Slavery Now. End Slavery Now. Web. 15 May 2016.
“Facts on Human Trafficking and Sex Slavery | Soroptimist.” Human Trafficking Facts. Soroptimist. Web. 15 May 2016.
Poussin, Nicholas. The Rape of the Sabine Women. 1637 – 38. Oil on Canvas. The Louvre, Paris.