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Who will remember the sex trafficking victims?
Considering the monstrous profits that third parties can make from women’s prostitution, it’s not hard to figure out why some people might want to remove it from the scope of anti-trafficking law, says ANNA FISHER
[flickr.com/photos/iragelb/]

TODAY is United Nations Day Against Trafficking in Persons. This year’s theme is listening to the victims and learning from them. But how can we do this if we don’t see them?

It has long been recognised that trafficking for the purpose of the exploitation of the victim’s prostitution (sex trafficking) is the most common form of human trafficking and that the vast majority of its victims are female. This is down to the vast profits that can be made selling women and girls in prostitution. 

By way of example, a British man recently made £1.6 million in one year from the prostitution of women in his brothels. As Tony Talbott put it, “You can sell a kilo of heroin once; you can sell a 13-year-old girl 20 times a night, 365 days a year.” 

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