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Chapter 15
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-9282-3.ch015
ABSTRACT
Human trafcking is doubtless a major crime – jointly with terrorism and child abuse. It is estimated
that more than two billion people are missing in the world each year. These numbers associate to human
trafcking as an illegal act—known as well as slavery—where the victims not only are deprived of their
liberty but also forced to be enslaved or sexually exploited. Trafcking victims include women, men, and
children of all ages and social classes. In the feld of tourism, human trafcking leads to sexual activities.
Human trafcking is certainly based on a much deeper process where the victim is under-humanised,
which the victim lacks any basic right or legal protection during its captivity. This under-valorisation
process centres on what specialists dubbed “desensitization dynamic.” The captor feels little empathy
for the hosted victim or feels he or she should not be considered a human being. This process has been
widely studied by clinical psychology, but little is known about the desensitization process in the felds
of tourism and hospitality.
INTRODUCTION
In the twenty-first century, some organizations have denounced millions of persons who are illegally
seized trafficked or enslaved in the world. Although states coordinate efforts to struggle against human
trafficking, it is very hard to set an international legal background that helps security forces to dismantle
these illegal organizations. Paradoxically, human trafficking connects very well with legal industries like
tourism and hospitality and other sub-service sectors. To some extent, scholars have been captivated by
human trafficking though few credible solutions saw the light of publicity to date. It is very hard to cope
with illegal organizations which seize and traffic vulnerable persons. The present book chapter focuses
Failed Hospitality:
Human Traffcking in the
HBO Saga Westworld
Maximiliano Emanuel Korstanje
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5149-1669
University of Palermo, Argentina