These books each provide a unique take on the sex trade, human trafficking, or prostitution. Some books may be upsetting for certain readers, so please remember your own limits when choosing to read one of our recommendations.
1. A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern-Day Slavery
Author: E. Benjamin Skinner. Free Press, 2008.
Journalist E. Benjamin Skinner gives several accounts of current slaves and traffickers, but emphasizes slavery victims in Haiti, Sudan, Romania and India.
2. Bodies and Souls
Author: Isabel Vincent. HarperCollins Publishers, 2005.
The story of Jewish women victimized into the sex trade from the late 1860s to the beginning of the Second World War is told through academic studies and biographical accounts.
3. Listening to Olivia
Author: Jody Raphael. Northeastern University Press, 2004.
Jody Raphael gives voice to a woman formerly in prostitution and stripping in Chicago, Olivia, who
suffered from drug addiction, abuse, and poverty.
4. The Natashas
Author: Victor Malarek. Arcade Publishing, 2004.
The trend of Eastern European girls being forced into the sex trade is examined—how they get there, what happens, how they survive—as well as its impact on globalization.
5. Prostitution, Trafficking, and Traumatic Stress
Editor: Melissa Farley. The Haworth Maltreatment & Trauma Press, 2000.
An analysis of all aspects of the sex industry, from impoverished Mexican prostituted women to those trafficked around the world, and highlights the various forms of harm they face.
6. A Piece of Cake
Author: Cupcake Brown. Crown Publishers, 2006.
Cupcake’s story encompasses foster care, child abuse, rape, drug dealing and addiction, alcoholism, gang activity, prostitution, and homelessness.
7. The Johns: Sex for Sale and the Men Who Buy It
Author: Victor Malarek. Arcade Press, 2009.
The journalist and author of The Natashas writes another exposé on the sex industry, its customers, and the women who are trafficked from around the world.
8. The Macho Paradox
Author: Jackson Katz. Sourcebooks, Inc., 2006.
In this book, Katz speaks to all men, who, he argues, have a role to play in preventing male violence against women.
9. Not for Sale: The Return of the Global Slave Trade and How We Can Fight It
Author: David Batstone. HarperCollins Publishers, 2007.
Journalist, professor, and editor David Batstone profiles the new generation of abolitionists who are leading the struggle to end modern-day slavery.
10. Sold
Author: Patricia McCormick. Hyperion, 2006
SOLD is the fictional story of 13-year-old Lakshmi from Nepal who is sold into prostitution as a means to secure money for her family, and held against her will in a brothel in India. This book is suitable for young adults.