Maria' (not her real name; her identity was kept anonymous as she was a victim of sex trafficking), a sixteen-year-old interviewed by Al Jazeera in 2013, had just been saved from a prostitution ring 4 months ago. He comes from Tenancingo, an area synonymous with sex trafficking. When "Maria" was fourteen, an older man approached her, assuring her of a better life if she went with him to the United States. Desperate and attracted to America, seeing it as a land of opportunity and promise, she accepted. Unfortunately, it turned out he was a pimp. After taking her across the border into Mexico and crossing into New York, America, about 130 kilometers away, he made her a prostitute. It was a brutal life in which her trafficker controlled her through daily beatings and countless rapes. She says that after her first traumatic experience, she returned to her accommodation feeling ill and collapsed. Frustrated, she threw her earnings at her trafficker. Every day she bathed after coming home from work, not wanting the trafficker to touch her, but in reality he always raped her (Al Jazeera, 2013). Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay This harrowing ordeal is not faced only by Maria. Human trafficking is a globally widespread organized crime with approximately 10,000 people trafficked in 2017 in the United States and these are just those reported (Polaris, 2017). Sex trafficking, in particular, makes up 46% of all trafficking cases, just behind labor trafficking (Polaris, 2016). We consider sex trafficking to be the recruitment, harboring, or transportation of people for sexual exploitation through the use of violence, deception, or coercion, against their will (Anti-Slavery International, 2018). According to the Department of State (US Department of State, 2016), one of the main countries of origin of these victims is Mexico. Sexual violence suffered at the hands of traffickers has been reported to leave victims feeling like they have been robbed of their identity and treated like property (The Guardian, 2015). Victims also often suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or depression and have suicidal thoughts (Huffington Post, 2016). Some also suffer from vivid flashbacks of rape and assault (The Star, 2015). Seeing these documented negative implications of sex trafficking, along with its prevalence despite the presence of calls to action from organizations like Anti-Slavery International and the United Nations, I am motivated to focus my essay on sex trafficking throughout Mexico. US border (UNODC 2016: 25). Like Maria, many are willing to make the dangerous journey from Mexico to the United States, with increasing numbers of migrants dying in the process (The Guardian, 2018). There are numerous push and pull factors at play here. Push factors pushed Maria to leave Mexico. Pull factors attract Maria to America. Maria, may be attracted to the political security and employment opportunities offered by America (pull factor) as opposed to the job shortage and political instability experienced in Mexico (push factor) (Alchin, 2017). Others who have fallen prey to cross-border sex trafficking have attributed their migration to better education to move up the socioeconomic ladder (pull factor) while others flee domestic threats (push factor) (Olson, 2016). Through this essay, I will establish that1. Crime, especially sex trafficking, arose because of itof deviance from social norms and deficiencies in social structures or the collapse of social institutions2. Karl Marx's conflict theory and his emphasis on economic capitalism explain profit through sex trafficking3. Globalization has fostered the proliferation of sex trafficking as technology has allowed international groups with common interests to become increasingly interconnected and thus organize crimes such as sex trafficking on a larger scale. Deviance and Sex Trafficking Human trafficking is considered a crime because it deviates from accepted standards of behavior and norms based on a society's values, established by a social institution such as the government. Here, the norms do not violate Mary's freedom or the agency of her own actions, embodying the values ​​of dignity and respect. Social structures such as law and order are dysfunctional, and the government is perhaps even complicit in these crimes, as seen in corruption, resulting in a failure to protect Maria and others. Endemic corruption costs Mexico between 2 and 10% of its GDP each year (Rubio, 2017). Corruption is the result of the collapse of social structures such as the Constitution, without any system of checks and balances, which allows for the misappropriation of money. This is best exemplified in how the president himself, Pena Nieto, has been linked to corrupt practices: his home renovations are said to have come from government contracts. (Rubio, 2017). There are strong links between criminal capitalism contributing to a criminal economy transferred through money laundering to formal economies in countries such as Mexico (Reuters, 2018). Karl Marx's conflict theory explains that tensions arise when resources, status or power are distributed unequally between different groups in a society, resulting in social changes. In this case study, resources are the basic needs for Maria to live a comfortable life, status is her social position in relation to others around her, and power includes her material and financial means. Maria's poor financial circumstances and resulting vulnerability classify her as proletariat in her society while coyotes, given their greater power and financial influence, are classified as bourgeois (British Columbia, 2014). Coyotes own the means of production, i.e. traffic, while proletarians survive by trading themselves as commodities. Each man who visits Maria pays her approximately $35 and on average she meets up to 60 men a day (Mexican Human Trafficking Report, 2017). The ironic thing, however, is that only a fraction of this money can be kept by Maria; most of the earnings must be given to the coyote who will otherwise also earn a flat fee of $5000 for helping in cross-border migration (CNN, 2010). The bourgeois strata own a huge half of the nation's total income (The Borgen Project, 2017). According to Marx, there is a strong correlation between wealth and economic and political power (McEwan, 2009). As such, there is implicit or explicit coercion in which the bourgeoisie is able to assert its dominance, by any means possible, by projecting wealth (implicit) or violence (explicit). This helps perpetuate the blind acceptance of hierarchy. This explains why Mary, at the promise of an apparently older, wiser and richer man, is induced to follow him. Coyotes have the upper hand due to their financial means and physical means to aid in cross-border migration. This constant disparity is the result of a highly economically capitalist system. A capitalist system has a conceptionsingular in the world: its primary mode of production and distribution of goods is the most important. This highly capitalist society gives rise to inequalities due to the stratification of a society based on economic gains, which in turn forms disadvantaged groups. In Mexico, eight-year-old boys from poor backgrounds are trained to become pimps or coyotes when they grow up and are taught to understand that "sex sells," exemplifying how disadvantaged groups respond with deviant behavior such as human trafficking to land the lunar (Odyssey, 2016). Furthermore, this asset is considered economical and can be used over and over again (Fusion, 2014). This objectification of women also promotes the idea that women lack inherent value. The capitalist system explains why coyotes, more often than not, motivated by their financial interests, in turn victimize girls like Maria as a means to an end (Pepperdine University, 2017). Here the logic becomes the accumulation of surplus value. These deviant behaviors further contribute to the capitalist system that allows sex trafficking to become a highly profitable business sector generating up to US$152 billion in revenue globally (ILO, 2016). Conflict theory explains that inequalities resulting from a capitalist society explain deviations from social norms, explaining sex trafficking. Globalization and its Impact on Sex Trafficking In an era characterized by rapid growth in the circulation and mobilization of goods, labor, information, ideas, and so on, globalization has had the unintended consequence of exacerbating international sex trafficking. Transnational organized crime has disrupted Mexico's social stability and changed the fundamental values ​​of a society where women are often objectified. Globalized crime represents a greater threat to Mexico's state sovereignty and its citizens, with a greater risk of violating rights, values ​​and institutional norms. In the future, democratic policies may also become more corrupt, culminating in financial crises due to the rise of criminal capital. First, the Internet is used for recruiting and communication. Through social media platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook, traffickers lure and recruit women like Maria into sex trafficking under the guise of job opportunities in the United States (Latonero, 2012). With an impressive increase in mobile phones globally, from 200 million in 1997 to 4.57 billion in 2018, people are more connected than ever (Statista, 2018). A message sent from one corner of the world to another can be received immediately, enabling instant communication between several interconnected organizations. In this case study, when New York brothels are short of girls, more supply is requested from Mexico to meet the increased demand via SMS, Whatsapp, Telegram etc. (Tedi Bear Children's Advocacy Center, 2015). At the same time, with globalization, minors' access to someone's personal information is made easier due to the huge amount of data available online, through stalking or with the help of professional hackers. Secondly, globalization has given rise to greater mobility. The key strategy in all clandestine crime is that management and production must be based in low-risk areas where there is relative dominance of the institutional environment, in this case Mexico, where social structures have continuously failed for some decades now. Areas that offer the greatest monetary supply and demand for girls like Maria are then targeted. This can.