Right now a man is walking into a brothel in Cambodia and being handed a “menu”: which girl would he like to be with tonight? Somewhere in a city near you, another man is going to meet a young girl he saw on Craigslist who promised to show him a good time.
What drives a man to buy sex?
This is really the missing piece of the sex trafficking puzzle. With a total global market value of $28 billion, sex slavery is one of the biggest money-making crimes in the world. And as with any market, there are three critical elements that play a role: supply, distribution, and demand. On the supply side are all the women and children forced or coerced into a life of sexual servitude. On the distribution side are all the pimps, madams, brothels, and networks responsible for connecting girls with clients. But what drives it all are the johns: men willing to buy sex.
Demand drives supply. But where does the demand come from?