Human trafficking is often considered a modern form of slavery. it degrades its victims to mere commodities bought and sold to satisfy a commercial demand. He attempts to erase his victims' identity as human beings and instead sees them as objects. But despite this, it is the identities of those forced into sexual slavery that are key to understanding the nature of human trafficking, as it is not an arbitrary crime. His victims share commonalities in their identities, their stories and their experiences. This is not mere coincidence, but rather the result of widespread attitudes about gender, race, and socioeconomic class. That is, the crime itself can be dissected and understood more easily by critically examining the identities of its victims according to a feminist paradigm. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay While feminist theory consists of many different intertwined theoretical perspectives, the postcolonial feminist school of thought best explains the role that identities such as gender play in the world of trafficking. Similar to the concept of intersectionality, postcolonial feminism argues that women's experiences vary along cultural, ethnic, and geographic lines. In other words, oppression is not a universal experience among women. Women living in developing countries, for example, lead different lives and experience oppression differently than more privileged women in the Western world (Kegley & Blanton 46). Unlike intersectional theory and other mainstream feminist movements, however, postcolonial feminist theory tends to focus on the identities and experiences of non-Western women. It is women living in postcolonial developing countries who experience the horrors of human trafficking most harshly. The African and Middle Eastern regions serve as major centers of transnational trafficking, exploiting women seeking work (note that the term “women” is used loosely here, as 50% of trafficked persons are minors [ Lansink 46]). Most of these women are migrants who, having fled poverty and persecution in their home countries, are forced to work in exploitative conditions when they arrive alone in a new country. This type of exploitation is mainly gender-based: women are more often than men forced into prostitution, arranged marriages and domestic work. This makes them vulnerable to rape and other types of sexual violence—all forms of “gender-specific harm” (Lansink 47-48). While men can also be victims, the specific and gendered nature of human trafficking demonstrates that, as an industry, it is, at its essence, an intentional form of violence against women. Knowing all this, we can try to look for a root cause: what triggers the chain reaction that leads a woman forced into a life of degradation? It all comes back to the recurring pattern of women leaving their home countries, fleeing a multitude of forms of oppression: poverty. Lack of education. Unemployment. Abuse. Political unrest. Women who become victims of trafficking have these things in common. Their identity as young, poor women from developing or politically unstable countries is what puts them at risk of becoming victims of trafficking. Their gender, political, geographic, and cultural identities, elaborated on both an individual and social level, place these women in positions where.