A crime so monstrous : a shocking exposé of modern-day sex slavery, human trafficking and urban child markets
/ E. Benjamin Skinner
- New York : Free Press , 2008.
- 381 p. : maps ; 24 cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Today there are "more slaves than at any time in history," according to journalist Skinner's report on current and former slaves and slave dealers. Skinner's travelogue-cum-indictment focuses most sharply on Haiti, Sudan, Romania and India, and is interspersed with a detailed account of the work of John Miller, director of the State Department Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, or "America's antislavery czar." Skinner reiterates that sexual trafficking is only one component of slavery, but devotes the bulk of this book (when it is not following Miller's State Department career) to this issue. The text teeters toward the travelogue, taking the reader to "Dubai's most notorious brothel" and Skinner's adventures in "pos[ing] as a client to talk to women... [or] as an arms dealer to talk to traffickers." Nevertheless, Skinner's story merits reading, and not just because the cause is noble and the detail often fascinating, such as the moral complications of Christian Solidarity International's "redemption" or purchase of 85,000 slaves' freedom. Skinner's account of the internal workings of the State Department and the deep links to faith-based antislavery groups and their special interests is seriously newsworthy and, at times, moving.