Siddharth Kara Summary

In this book, author Siddharth Kara investigates the dynamics of the global sex trade industry in attempts to address key impediments in establishing effective global response to eradicate it (Kara, p. 24). The central argument of this book is that the flagrancy and universality of sex trafficking can be understood as the result of colossal profits associated with selling sex inexpensively and globally (Kara, p. 24). Throughout this book the author provides an account of his journey into the world of sex trafficking by sharing the stories of victims, testimonies of participants and industry leaders, and further, illustrating a background of the financial, economic, and legal circumstances surrounding the industry. Kara provides an analysis

Similar to ethnographic studies, Kara explored the sex trade industry by engaging in a collection of data through what can be described as fieldwork involving investigating local sex trade communities by positioning himself in sex trade settings including brothels, massage parlors, street corners, shelters, etc. Kara’s investigation mirrors a number of the attributes associated with ethnography including its holistic approach to investigating the cultural systems behind the industry; investigation of socio-economic context, processes and meanings with the industry; its process of discovery, and making inference; and its interpretative, reflective and constructive process. Also, Kara’s use of footnotes and continuous recording of information is ethnographic as it presents the world of sex slaves in human context as densely described case studies (India and Nepal, Italy and Western Europe, Moldova and the Former Soviet Union, Albania and the Balkans, and Thailand and the Mekong Sub region). Kara’s methods to this investigation, including the attainment of records and statistics from health care services, social services, and other entities; making phone calls, visits to front businesses, and face-to-face interviews, is essentially rewarding to the validity

Burkhalter generally states that Kara’s analysis underestimates national government and local police contribution to the abolition of sex slavery, yet his book will be an asset in the global fight against sex-trafficking to protect women, children, and others vulnerable, in the years to come. Kara’s emphasis on law enforcement is the right approach, but I agree with Burkhalter’s opinion that the wrong mechanism was used in doing so. Kara should have explored deeper into the possibility of national government and local police forces’ obligations to protect, and the fact that with international pressure, robust social demand, and appropriate training, real changes can be made to eradicate sex slavery (Burkhalter). It is Laura Agustin’s book review which makes it clear that the ethnographic- like approach to investigation Kara engages in significantly flawed as academia. Laura Agustin takes a different stand from Burkhalter of Kara’s book calling it an unscholarly methodological research that fails to reflect knowledge of literature on appropriate context of the author’s experience, resulting in a book that looks like the colonial writing of an unsophisticated man reflecting on his dismay of immeasurable injustices, and