12/2/2018
An example of a local economic force that most of the time exploits women is prostitution.
Most of the women who go into prostitution are sexually exploited since multiple people
contribute from her body and her labor. The prostitutes are mostly in need of money coming
from poverty so pimps, brothels, hotel owners, even police officers that are bribed to look the
other way, get in on about 80 percent of what they own. Women in the Global South that want
to migrate to better their lives are picked up by traffickers who trick them into forced labor as a
way of modern day slavery. There is also sexual tourism which is more on a global standard
with hundreds of thousands of men traveling from countries such as the U.S., Australia, U.K.,
Japan, France, Germany, basically the developed nations, going to Brazil, Cambodia, Thailand,
Cuba, etc. for sex holidays. This increases the economy in these developing countries and are
sometimes included as one of the attraction for destinations. A lot of these women, sometimes
younger than 18 (20% in Thailand), are there to service these men while they are in their
country. The countries that need the money ignore most of the happenings since no one is
really getting hurt and reaping the rewards.
When we talk about the global economy, one of the most prevalent examples that pops into
my head would be the women working in sweatshops in developing nations. These women are
a source of cheap labor that, of course, only benefits those reaping the profits from their hard
labor. Women are easily exploited because of their manual dexterity and docility which was
conditioned by their culture so they can be hired for lower pay with no benefits, job
guarantees, or even social security.
An example from our readings would be the Salvadoran women that work for Youngone
maquila in Olocuilta, La Paz, El Salvador who sew jackets that will be delivered to the American
company North Face. For every $165 jacket, they earn 94 cents while working at most 91 hours
per week (there are 168 hours in a normal week). With such low pay, they cannot afford basic
necessities and food for their family. It is understandable that there are not many jobs out
there but this does not mean that women have to be exploited for their work. Their