Transnational crime is a complex issue and sex trafficking is just one of these many issues. In this paper I am going to discuss when and where these transnational crime groups first engage in the activity, how this benefits the transnational crime groups involve, discuss how the emergence and ongoing conduct of the criminal activity has been facilitated or hindered by the groups own characteristics and by the elements of external environment, and I will explore prospects and possible strategies for eliminating criminal activity. I will also discuss the criminal network involve in sex trafficking. Before I begin in debt discussion about trafficking one must first understand what it is. Sex trafficking is define by the UNESCO as “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation” ( United National, Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization 2005: 16 ).
Due to the end of the Cold War, an expanded number of laborers of all sorts moved from Eastern to Western Europe. Some of these laborers were sex workers. “Women, some who may have been victims themselves, play an important role in exploiting the victims. The traffickers are often of the same nationality as the victim” (UNODC 2010:3).
According to the Global crime report the techniques used to recruit vary by source country: in Eastern Europe, victims maybe collected through employment agencies, while in West Africa, family and social networks are utilized. Groups engaging in trafficking for exploitation are small. The victims of sex trafficking can be voluntary or involuntary..
