Flores, Veronica Bayetti. “Human Trafficking: A Reproductive Justice Issue.” American Civil Liberties Union, January 2009. http://www.aclu.org/blog/content/human-trafficking-reproductive-justice-issue.
Annotation
In her blog, Bayetti Flores covers three essential points. Her main point is that human trafficking is a reproductive justice issue, partly because of the potential for sex to be coerced, which may put the trafficked person at risk of sexually transmitted infections or diseases. Flores argues that people who are trafficked are not randomly, but rather systematically, chosen based on a target population made vulnerable by economic injustice, racial/ethnic oppression, and gender subordination. Relating this argument to Latinas, she claims that failed economic policies put pressure on women to find better lives and risk being trafficked in the process. In her final assessment, Bayetti Flores challenges the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops as administrators of government funds targeted at trafficking. She writes that women rescued from trafficking go from one form of oppression to another.
This blog provides a useful introduction to human trafficking as a reproductive justice issue.