Visa Fraud in the Commercial Sex Market in the United States: An Overview

Author: Dale, Youngbee

Abstract: This paper describes various fraudulent visas used by criminals operating in the U.S. sex market. Studies show that many foreign women exploited through commercial sex rely on visa brokers to enter the U.S. However, scholars have not investigated various visa brokers and the techniques they use to bring foreign women into U.S. prostitution as a whole. Therefore, this paper aims to provide an overview of the different types of fraudulent visas and criminal techniques used in the U.S. sex market. In doing so, this paper relies on both primary and secondary sources, such as interviews with both survivors and U.S. government officials, scholarly articles, NGO reports, U.S. legal cases, press releases, online forums, news reports, and blogs written in English, Russian, Korean, and Chinese. This paper then discusses the current issues with combating visa fraud in the U.S. sex market and provides recommendations to fight the problem more effectively.

Keywords: commercial sex market, sex trading, visa fraud