Global Traffic

The Brazilian women working in Bragança these days are only one wave in the flood of migrant sex workers washing up on European shores. An estimated 500,000 women and children — mainly from Eastern Europe, Africa, South America and Southeast Asia — are trafficked to E.U. countries for sexual exploitation every year, according to the European Institute for Crime Prevention and Control. The International Organization for Migration says this trafficking generates $8 billion each year. Trafficking volume is soaring in Europe, impelled by increasing demand for prostitution in the E.U., the rise of organized crime in Eastern Europe, and the desperation...