| This thesis examines the emergence of global trafficking as an outcome of economic restructuring. As structural adjustment policies (SAPS) are initiated, consequences negatively accumulate to entrap women in a vicious cycle of impoverishment, marginalization, and social degeneration which make them susceptible to trafficking. Grafting neoliberal capitalism onto societies reinforces patriarchy while it weakens norms and values, and enables an ethic of self-interest to supercede social responsibilities. Liberalization, privatization, and deregulation of domestic economies provide opportunities for the simultaneous exploitation of women, growth of organized crime, and corruption of the state. The Russian case study substantiates how market reforms progressively proletarianize, sexualize, and frequently criminalize women's labour, promoting the globalization of trafficked women. Market reforms are exposed as severely biased policy instruments that subjugate women under the control of interdependent patriarchies, whether states or individual men, for profit. Unless the neoliberal capitalist agenda is subverted, social destabilization will result in increasing exploitation of the vulnerable. |
