WOMAN, CHILD FOR SALE: The New Slave Trade in the 21st Century

Fast on the heels of the State Department's annual report on human trafficking comes this brief but frightening look at a $12-billion-a-year global industry. It's essentially a clip job—King's research into today's slave trade is based on remarks by concerned politicians, news stories and prior academic works, as well as on an exhaustive, chapter-long recap of the aforementioned 2003 Trafficking in Persons Report—but it is a valuable compilation of stories and statistics. A brief look at the history of slavery gives an overview of bondage in the Greco-Roman empire and a timeline of the African slave trade. Short recitations of trafficking case studies—a 14-year-old Thai girl whose promised "good job" turned out to be prostitution, dozens of Peruvian nationals forced to work in factories and turn their wages over to a Long Island family—serve as illustrative but cursory examples. The information here, though cobbled together from prior sources, is inherently thought-provoking and is set forth clearly if inelegantly. Those seeking a quick course in the deplorable milieu of modern slave trafficking will find King's volume useful. (Sept.)