Columbia University Press

Transnational Social Work Practice

annette — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 20:00:00 +0000

Edited by Rich Furman, Nalini Junko Negi

Transnational Social Work Practice is definitely not a book intended for a popular audience. That it is a textbook was clear to me before I even laid eyes on the book, when I noted that the list price on Amazon.com—for this slim 241-page volume—was $50. The articles, too, are written with the assumption that readers are familiar with a number of complex social work and development concepts, such as sustainability, cultural competence, and professional accreditation, among others. Nevertheless, I read the anthology as a lay person, and I found it an engaging, accessible read that opened my mind to new questions about global development and social change.

The book is divided loosely into two sections. It begins with an introduction to the concept of transnationality—the state of individuals and communities who are living life with a sustained investment in two or more nations (as contrasted with an “older” immigration pattern of gradually transferring one's presence and investment out of one country and into another).

Following this introduction is a collection of four articles (entitled “The Context of Transmigration”) that further illuminate issues that affect transnational populations, including environmental change and degradation, economic networks that cross national borders (including networks of remittance), and globalization. The second section of the book (“Services to Transmigrants”) focuses on the application of social work practice to transnational populations. The nine articles in this section explore the role of social workers in responding to processes including cross-border human trafficking, refugee resettlement, and violence against migrant workers. One article, “Using Internet Technology for Transnational Social Work Practice and Education,” reflects upon the growing availability of translation software, useful both for bridging client/provider language gaps and for facilitating resource-sharing among an increasingly international professional community. Another article, “Incorporating Transnational Social Work into the Curriculum,” considers the need to prepare social work students for an increasingly international and transnational field—for example, by developing a service-learning class designed to be held at the Texas-Mexico border, as the article's authors did.

As a lay reader, one of my favorite aspects of the book was the discussion of the macro, mezzo, and micro levels at which social work practice can function. Cynthia A. Hunter, Susannah Lepley, and Samuel Nickels lay out this distinction most clearly in the last article in the book, “New Practice Frontiers: Current and Future Social Work with Transmigrants.” Micro practice refers to the one-on-one work between provider and client, which can be focused on individual coping and meaning-making, or on case management (connecting clients with welfare services for which they are eligible). Macro practice refers to advocacy and policy-making—changing institutions and systems at national and international levels.

What Hunter, Lepley, and Nickels consider mezzo-level social work (and authors Brij Mohan and Julia E. Clark describe as macro-level social work in their article “Macro Social Work Practice with Transmigrants”) can be described as a sort of “back door” to political organizing, in which providers are able to connect clients with information about their situation, and with other clients in similar situations, in a way that empowers them to organize themselves to change their circumstances. I appreciated the authors' acknowledgment of the complexity of the power relations surrounding this practice, especially if the providers in question are outsiders who have, on one hand, little local understanding, and, on the other, access to resources that their clients do not have. I also appreciated the push to consider how outsider social workers can transfer that access to clients in strategic ways.

In the end, this is the major question that the book raised for me: Can international social work be solidarity work? If the global North must be engaged in the “development” of the global South, might it be possible for “providers” to take advantage of that “welfare infrastructure” to transfer information and resources to “clients” from developing countries in a way that empowers them to demand that development take place on their own terms?

Written by: Ri J. Turner, March 13th 2011

Twenty-first Century Motherhood: Experience, Identity, Policy, Agency

barbara — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Edited by Andrea O'Reilly

Columbia University Press

Motherhood is often a topic of confusion or contention among feminists. The process of birthing demonstrates just how awesome and powerful women’s bodies are. However, the institution of motherhood is constructed in ways that oppress women and privilege certain classes, races, and sexualities. In Of Woman Born Adrienne Rich writes, “We do not think of the power stolen from us and the power withheld from us in the name of the institution of motherhood.”

Taking their cue from Rich, writers of the new volume Twenty-first Century Motherhood: Experience, Identity, Policy, Agency look to reclaim some of this stolen and withheld power. This volume, which explores current issues in the burgeoning field of motherhood studies, shows how women have begun deconstructing motherhood through the practice of “empowered mothering” that has transformed this institution. Editor Andrea O’Reilly’s introduction to the volume gives readers a clear and succinct foundation of feminist theories surrounding motherhood studies including Sara Ruddick’s revolutionary idea that mothering is a practice and therefore a verb as opposed to a noun.

While O’Reilly’s introduction is much needed for motherhood studies amateurs such as myself, the essays in Twenty-first Century Motherhood range much further than a mere introduction to this exciting field. This volume, true to its title, explores how recent changes have altered forever the experience of mothering for women everywhere. The essays are divided into four sections— experience, identity, policy, and agency—and cover a huge range of topics which seem to particularly affect mothers in the Global North. The articles range, quite incredibly, from Chicana mothering and GBLTQ parenting to the role that the internet and biotechnology play in familial relations.

I was pleasantly caught off guard by Ana Villalobos’ thought-provoking essay, “Mothering in Fear: How Living in an Insecure-Feeling World Affects Parenting.” Villalobos does an excellent job exploring the question: what mothering strategies do parents use in reaction to today’s perceived fear and risk-abundant environment? Villalobos shows that while some mothers have become overly protective, others have developed inoculating parenting behaviors—exposing their children to the risks of the world. While these parents have often been criticized as lacking an intense love and care for their children, Villalobos shows that just the opposite is true. These inoculating parents believe that by exposing their children to moderate, but manageable, risks they are better caring for their children by allowing them to learn how to navigate such a complex and dangerous world.

In “Brown Bodies, White Eggs,” Harrison touches on some very pertinent issues surrounding race and labor in matters of cross-racial gestational surrogacy, when the surrogate female giving birth is of a different race than the child she is carrying. In her essay, Harrison proposes that while the inter-relations of people of different races in this process of birthing may seem to efface racialized gender hierarchies they actually do much more to enforce them.

Lastly, I was quite impressed with Rachel Epstien’s essay, “Queer Parenting in the New Millennium.” Toward the end of her essay, Epstien poignantly comes to the difficult question: how do queer parents obtain both the public recognition they desire as lovers and parents while at the same time persist in resisting the norm and questioning that which society sees as recognizable? In answer to this question, Epstien writes, “let our children learn that “sexuality and gender are varied, fluid, complex, messy, exciting, scary, fun and always changing.” Epstien here makes an excellent point. At the end of Twenty-first Century Motherhood however, it is easy to see that along with sexuality and gender, motherhood should also be taught as “varied, fluid, complex, messy, exciting, scary, fun, and always changing.”

Written by: Colleen S. Kenny, January 30th 2011

The Rey Chow Reader

emily — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 16:00:00 +0000

Edited by Paul Bowman

Columbia University Press

Not many theorists would re-imagine Jane Eyre as a Maoist. However, postcolonial thinker Rey Chow does and with great aplomb. Furthermore, it's not in the context of English literature in which Chow invokes the fictional heroine, but rather the issue of Orientalism in today's academia. According to Chow, the Maoist Jane Eyre is a romantic and a self-styled victim that is embodied in the non-native scholar of East Asian studies who bemoans the loss of cultural “authenticity” in an increasingly globalised world. Chow's deft and even fanciful portrayal of the latter-day Orientalist that demonstrates her creative ingenuity and unconventional analytical mind is evident throughout the collection of her essays, The Rey Chow Reader, edited by Paul Bowman.

These qualities are important in the primary themes tackled in her writings—sexuality, racism, and postcolonialism. In the post-Edward Said world, the Orientalism of yore is not only outmoded but a disgrace to the Western academic code of practice, but Chow is perceptive to detect the more subtle Orientalisms she finds still pervasive in the academy, particularly in East Asian studies in Western institutions. Not only are academics (and often highly respected icons; Julia Kristeva for one) safe from Chow's relentless critique of latter day Orientalism, the works and words of art house film-makers Zhang Yimou and Bernado Bertolucci also go under her microscopic scrutinising gaze.

She is also self-aware of her own position in the ivory tower that she turns this gaze towards herself in an essay about her early career in academia; scholars from the former colonial frontier during the dissolution of the British empire such as herself (Chow hails from Hong Kong) were seduced by the imagined prestige of English literature that rendered Chinese writing less superior and intellectually legitimate. Chow's essay on the postcolonial-ised scholar is a subdued call to arms for the reclamation of one's own scholarship and by effect, cultural identity, even if one cannot readily give up the tools fashioned by the master.

It becomes clear that Chow is also deeply political. 'Seeing is Destroying' charts the changes in the US discourse of war since the devastating bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to today's brutality of war made sophisticated. These historical observations are perhaps nothing new, however, her concept of the target has chilling resonance of the primordial hunt. As the target in the hunt for America's national Other, first Japan, then the USSR, and now the shadowy figure of the Muslim terrorist, it is reduced to an object on which the trigger is on perpetual threat mode. What links 'Seeing is Destroying' with most of Chow's essays is visuality and the continued technological advancements that make the act of seeing increasingly powerful and more instrumental in xenophobic and sexist control.

Chow's tentacle-like approach to a diversity of disciplines that probes into every crevice of detail promises a thrilling experience and an inspiration to younger scholars of postcolonialism like myself. Perhaps the level of microscopic detail that Chow magnifies throughout her merciless analyses on Orientalism in film and her idiosyncrantic salad-bowl approach to theory may not appeal to everyone, but Chow has certainly created a fan in me.

Written by: Alicia Izharuddin, October 29th 2010

Graphic Women: Life Narrative and Contemporary Comics

admin — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Hillary L. Chute

Columbia University Press

My taste in female-authored comics is pretty obvious—Colleen Doran (A Distant Soil), Wendy Pini (Elfquest), Donna Barr (Stinz, Desert Peach—and I am also a fan of women embedded in the production line comics (such as artist Lily Renee Phillips). But I have never been much drawn to the rather sordid memoirs of the overtly feminist artists covered in the book I am reviewing today (Aline Kominsky-Crumb, Phoebe Gloeckner, Lynda Barry, Marjane Satrapi, Alison Bechdel).

My first impression of Graphic Women was not overwhelmingly positive; it is written in the convoluted, polysyllabic jargon that is the academic version of purple prose. And it did not help that, to my eye, author Hillary L. Chute simplifies some things that are complicated and complicates some things that are simple. For example, she frequently attributes the different levels of critical such of husband (Crumb) and wife (Kominsky-Crumb) to sexism. While there is no doubt that sexism plays a role, it is a complex one in which commercial appropriateness and the development of associated skills are involved—not just the crass biases of critics. Meanwhile the blocking of Gloeckner's work from spaces like public libraries has less to do with its complex and uncomfortable themes than the depiction of erect penises which has always been a problem whether the context is high art or Playgirl magazine.

There is good and proportional use of excepts from the works being discussed, embroidering upon their composition, meaning and context. It seems to me that Chute varies in how much she illuminates the various author-artists. For example, she is revealing in discussing Kominsky-Crumb, and settles into a more plainspoken, and almost journalistic, tone in the chapter on Marjane Satrapi. I think the best balance is struck in the final chapter on Alison Bechdel, where the complexity of Chute's language and of the subject are best married together.

But there seems to be a very persistent self-involved strain, such as when Alison Bechdel asserts that cartooning is "inherently autobiographical"—when the format as a whole clearly leans more towards the fantastical. Overall, it seems to me that the non-literary graphic novel and comic communities aware of, and while not embracing, certainly respect the literary and memoir aspects of the format. However, it seems that the reverse is not true. The bold fantasies mainstream of comics is almost completely absent from considerations of the context for the author-artists in this volume and their intricate and neurotic disclosures.

Overall, after reading Graphic Women, I did find the work of these female comic artists rather more appealing when "taken from behind" in terms of motivation, biography, and wider social context than when I had taken them at face value. I was convinced, for example, for the first time that Kominsky-Crumb's naive style is a fully deliberate choice—albeit, one I still find off-putting. And I did use my limited funds to buy a copy of Kominsky-Crumb's graphic memoir and of Persepolis.

On the whole I would say Graphic Women is dense, informative, and useful in understanding a rather isolated but important strand of graphic novel development, but this book embodies rather than explains its peculiar and irritating pretensions.

Cross-posted at The Cliterature

Written by: Emily Veinglory, August 13th 2010

Forgetting Children Born of War: Setting the Human Rights Agenda in Bosnia and Beyond

admin — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 16:02:00 +0000

By R. Charli Carpenter

Columbia University Press

In Forgetting Children Born of War, R. Charli Carpenter explores a perplexing question: Why has the human rights community ignored a critically vulnerable population, the children born to women who were raped during war? These children are subject to infanticide, neglect, abuse, and abandonment—both within their own families and within the societies into which they are born. Since the human rights community has a mandate to protect the most vulnerable citizens of society—which usually includes children, mothers, and pregnant women—why are they violating their own principles?

Through an exhaustive study of media, NGO reports, and interviews, Carpenter comes to understand that children born of war have been forgotten and neglected because human rights advocates focus instead on the problem of ethnic cleansing and genocide, as well as the women who have been subjected to sexual violence. Focusing on the children born of rape is understood as a conflict of interest. War rape is talked about and viewed “through lenses of nationalism, feminism, and humanitarianism rather than through a children’s rights frame.” Rape is a crime and the woman who experiences war rape is a victim; forced pregnancy and rape are weapons of ethnic cleansing. This is how the issue is dealt with in the context of the human rights agenda. Thus, the child conceived through rape is understood as a product of violence, as a “tool of genocide,” rather than as a human being in need of special protection.

Human rights advocates who initially considered the issue eventually decided to allow the local community to deal with these children, rather than offer the benefits, resources, and organizational manpower of the global human rights network. Local communities have responded in a variety of ways but none of the efforts made on behalf of these children are sufficient.

Carpenter’s book sheds light not just on the problem of children who have been conceived through rape during a time of war—tens of thousands of children across the globe—but also the equally complex problem of how human rights issues get constructed and adopted within the community, ultimately leading to how needs are addressed or ignored. Her book is a critical call for the need to re-examine our understanding of human rights and how those needs are addressed through the human rights network.

Written by: Jessica Powers, August 1st 2010

Can the Subaltern Speak?: Reflections on the History of an Idea

admin — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 16:01:00 +0000

Edited by Rosalind C. Morris

Columbia University Press

I was first introduced to Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s famous 1988 essay, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” during a graduate seminar that focused on postcolonial and feminist literature. While I read many works by various important and transformative authors during that semester, Spivak’s discussion of the subaltern stood out to me as being more important and more transformative than the others. To be honest, there are portions of the essay that I still don’t understand; there are analogies and culturally based references that elude me.

However, the ideas that I took away from Spivak’s essay were powerful and thought-provoking because they allowed me to think about a group of women, whom Spivak calls the “subproletariat subaltern,” in a manner that allowed me to connect with these women. Specifically, Spivak’s interwoven application of Marxist, deconstructionist, feminist, and postcolonial theories allowed me to understand the capitalist system in which I—a middle class, white, woman born and raised in America—navigate, at times successfully and at others with great disappointment.

To an ever greater extent, Spivak’s assertions in “Can the Subaltern Speak?” made it clear to me that this is the same system which has worked to imprison a certain global class of women, specifically in formerly colonized nations. While women of all socioeconomic statuses and ethnic backgrounds have suffered under the cruel grasp of capitalism, Spivak’s detailed analysis of the international division of labor and the global market-based economy shows that subproletariat women have suffered the most. As a subaltern group, they have had few to no opportunities to be heard, much less to speak.

In this newest anthology, Can the Subaltern Speak?, various scholars and authors have written essays in response to Spivak’s essay. The topics of these essays include research and pedagogy, the human rights of indigenous women in Guatemala and Mexico, slavery in the United States, and the interpretation of World War I in a postcolonial context. The diversity of these responsive essays shows the impact and far-reaching implications of Spviak’s original essay. Also included in this anthology is an Introduction by Rosalind C. Morris and an Afterword by Spivak, in which the author discusses the original essay’s past and future.

This is a not a light summer read. If you are interested in postcolonial theory and found Spviak’s original essay to be of value, as I and many others have, then this collection of essays is worth reading. Scholars and teachers of critical theory would find no shortage of material to discuss, evaluate, and consider. This text is not one that you sit down and read in an entire afternoon. Instead, it is a collection of ideas that you can revisit time and again. The sentiments discussed by Spivak and the other authors are especially poignant now because of the strife in the global economy, international warring, and the increased stratification of the classes. I suspect, sadly, that these sentiments will be relevant for years to come.

Written by: Rachel Scheib, July 4th 2010

In the Beginning, Woman Was the Sun: The Autobiography of a Japanese Feminist

admin — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 16:01:00 +0000

By Hiratsuka Raichō, Teruko Craig

Columbia University Press

In the beginning, woman was truly the sun. An authentic person. Now she is the moon, a wan and sickly moon, dependent on another, reflecting another’s brilliance. _ _... The time has come for us to recapture the sun hidden within us.

These lines launched Seitō, a women's literary journal, in 1911 Tokyo. Hiratsuka Raichō was one of the founders, and she poured her emotions into this opening editorial. Her essay gave voice to frustrations felt by women across the nation, and is now considered part of the canon of Japanese feminism.

In the Beginning, Woman Was the Sun is Raichō’s autobiography. Teruko Craig has translated the first half of a four volume set, with her own summary of the latter half of Raichō’s life. The book can best be described as a memoir, with more focus on experiences than facts.

Raichō did not intend to become a feminist icon. An atypical young girl, she went fishing with her father as a child, and later fought for permission to enroll in one of the few women’s colleges. Throughout her youth, Raichō squirmed under the oppressive dictates of school and family, conventions we would designate now as patriarchal, though she was not thinking in such terms.

Raichō was given a remarkable amount of freedom for a young woman. She walked alone to and from school and pursued her own activities. Passionate about attaining spiritual growth, she studied Zen for years. Her interest in literature came late, but when it did she began poring through the classics of European thought.

It was a male friend who urged her to found Seitō, "Bluestocking," a literary journal dedicated to fostering women writers. Raichō’s original drive was to inspire women to become their authentic selves. She did not think in terms of men and women, but of people who were denying themselves spiritually.

Raichō became a primary manager of the operation, with a team of other young women, and the magazine remained independent during the majority of its run from 1911 to 1916. Those involved were dubbed "New Women" by the newspapers, and their every action was scrutinized. The editorial team constantly walked the line between asserting their rights to act freely and avoiding the condemnation of society and the government, which banned several issues.

Raichō narrates her memoir in the voice of a confident woman, never apologizing nor boasting. I felt as though she was sitting near me, telling the story simply because I had asked to hear it. She explains her motivations, even when they are not quite what one might expect from a feminist icon. It was only later in her life that Raichō began to fight for the special rights and responsibilities women have as women, particularly as mothers. She describes this as a maturation of view.

Much time is spent on Raichō’s relationships with other writers. Though I was interested in the other women participating in Seitō, there were so many of them that they began to run together. I am sure that, to someone more familiar with the movers and shakers of Raichō’s time, the names will have more meaning, and these insights into their characters will be a gift. Craig points out that as an oral narrative, the text “tends to be repetitious and digressive,” but I rarely found this to be an issue except for these tangential stories.

The only thing missing is more of Raichō’s writings. The preeminent “In the beginning…” essay is only excerpted, allowing tantalizing glimpses into Raichō’s mind without allowing the reader to develop a sense of her full meaning. I feel it would have been helpful to have more of what appeared in Seitō as well. As such, In the Beginning, Woman Was the Sun is not a one-stop-shop for learning about Japanese feminism. There is a good sense of history and the larger changes in Japanese society at the time, but only in relation to Raichō and her projects. Her motivations and intentions are explained, but her work is not allowed to speak for itself. Nevertheless, the book sheds light on a time and a place that few would think of as progressive in terms of women’s rights.

Written by: Richenda Gould, June 28th 2010

The Weave of My Life: A Dalit Woman’s Memoir

admin — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 09:00:00 +0000

By Urmila Pawar

Columbia University Press

At the end of her memoir, The Weave of My Life, Urmila Pawar writes, “Life has taught me many things, showed me so much, it has also lashed out at me till I bled. I don’t know how much longer I am going to live, nor do I know in what form life is going to confront me. Let it come in any form; I am ready to face it stoically. This is what my life has taught me. This is my life and that is me!”

People write memoirs for different reasons. Some write memoirs because they’re paid a lot of money to give their version of important eras or events in which they were a pivotal player. Some want to even the score, set the record straight, or tell their story so others might learn from their experiences. I suspect that Pawar’s reason for writing The Weave of My Life was the last one.

Pawar is a well-known activist and award winning writer in India who continues to advocate for greater rights for Dalits (formerly called untouchables) and women in a country with complex social mores rooted in ancient traditions and religious teachings. Pawar tells of growing up as a Dalit on the Kolkan coast near Mumbai in the ‘50s and ‘60s when charismatic leaders like Dr. Ambedkar were advocating for a new casteless society where, if you were born into a lower caste, you were not born into your destiny with no hope of ever rising above your circumstances.

She writes about her experiences with caste discrimination in a matter-of-fact manner devoid of self-pity. As she recounts in her memoir, “the community grew up with a perpetual sense of insecurity, fearing that they could be attacked from all four sides in times of conflict. That is why there has always been a tendency in our people to shrink within ourselves like a tortoise and proceed at a snail’s pace.” Pawar says this slow pace picked up radically after her community’s mass spontaneous conversion to Buddhism in the wake of Dr. Ambedkar’s death because Buddhism allowed them to view themselves and their place in the world in a new way.

The book traces Pawar’s life from a very young age in a village where men and women lived a life of hard work and drudgery. Pawar’s family was somewhat unique for a Dalit family. Her father performed priestly duties for their caste, which were typically performed by Brahmins. Both of her parents were also strong believers in the importance of education to propel their children into a better life. Pawar’s resilience and strong belief in herself and her abilities shines through in this candid and inspiring memoir. From a young age, Pawar enjoyed acting in plays and participating in every aspect of school activities.

Pawar goes against her family’s wishes and marries a man whose family is somewhat below hers in social stature and who is less educated than her. It becomes clear early on that there will be tension in marriage because Pawar is a force of nature whose intensity only strengthens as she comes into her own. After the family moves to Mumbai, Pawar becomes involved in the Dalit rights movement and is recognized as a leading light in the Dalit literary movement. She writes frankly about her husband’s constant criticism and emotional abuse as she continued to do her “social work” and her writing and gained acclaim in the form of awards and published works. She also describes the fissures in the Dalit rights movement between human rights and women’s rights, which were not considered as important by the male leaders and often fell by the wayside.

By the end of the memoir, Pawar has experienced much loss and tragedy. She loses her son, her mother, and her husband in a relatively short period of time and finds herself being blamed by some in her community for these misfortunes because she was not a more traditional wife and mother.

At times I found it hard to keep track of the numerous family members, acquaintances and fellow activists Pawar mentions in the book. I also found myself constantly checking the glossary to remind myself of the meanings of various Marathi words used throughout the text. That aside, what I especially like about this memoir is that Pawar doesn’t whitewash, or sugar-coat the difficulties she encountered both personally and professionally. Her honesty in presenting her life and the daily struggles and victories she experienced is inspiring and is a testament to her courage and strength of character.

Written by: Gita Tewari, December 1st 2009

Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery

admin — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 10:39:00 +0000

By Siddharth Kara

Columbia University Press

Besides weapons and drugs, sex trafficking is the most profitable type of illegal trafficking in the world. In Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery, Siddharth Kara takes the reader on a disturbing global tour of Coalition Against Trafficking in Womensex slavery, traveling to India, Italy, Thailand, and several other countries.

An overarching theme that Kara mentions repeatedly is the deep-rooted cultural misogyny in so many of the countries he visited. Although poverty, war and social turmoil create a fertile ground for sex trafficking, the author identifies cultural attitudes toward women as the primary reason that sex trafficking occurs. In his words: “Millions of women lived in a world that overwhelmingly disdained them."

One of the most interesting aspects of Sex Trafficking is the circumstances that led the author to write it. He first became interested in trafficking as a college student, when he spent the summer of 1994 in a Bosnian refugee camp in Slovenia and learned about the trafficking of Bosnian Muslim women. Although he has been interested in sex slavery for many years, he is not an academic, nor does he advocate for anti-trafficking work professionally. Kara is a businessman, and funded his trafficking research trips around the world using personal savings. During his research trips, Kara conducted hundreds of interviews with slaves. In order to find sex for sale, he usually talked to cab drivers, posing as an interested client. In most countries, finding cheap sex was easy, and Kara usually found conditions indicative of sex slavery where he found cheap sex. The book's revelation that legalized prostitution often acts as a cover for sex slavery was very disturbing, especially in the chapter about slavery in Amsterdam.

In one of the most devastating passages of the book, Kara locates sex slavery at a “massage parlor” in Los Angeles. The young woman he meets was trafficked from Thailand with promises of a job as a waitress. Once in the U.S., she was told that she owed $20,000 to the “massage parlor” owner she was sold to, which she would earn by having sex with several men a day. At first she refused, but was beaten and raped into submission. Most of the money she makes goes to the owner, except for a small portion that is sent to her parents. Kara offers to help the woman by calling the police, but she refuses his help because she is afraid the trafficker will hurt her parents in Thailand. The author talks about the anguish he felt about whether or not to contact the police. He ended up not doing so, but still isn’t sure if this was the right choice.

The reader might wonder if the author handles these situations in the most appropriate manner, or whether his presence makes matters worse. Although I am sure that Kara had the best intentions, I have to wonder about the ethical limits of this type of research. At times he puts himself, and possibly the women he interacts with, in dangerous situations. He is essentially powerless to help the women that he comes into contact with, other than giving them educational pamphlets or phone numbers for shelters.

Kara describes the way that the industry operates, explaining that money is the prime motivator for sex trafficking, which is dominated more and more by organized crime rings and networks of corrupt public officials who can be bought off. Using economic theory, he argues that the best way to shut down the industry is to make sex trafficking less profitable.

Sex Trafficking paints a very bleak picture of the status of women globally, particularly for women from poor countries. Urgent action is required to end sex slavery, and my hope is that people who read this book will be moved to action.

Written by: Liz Simmons, April 21st 2009