Consider the following miserable assortment of facts: on Amazon you can buy a book entitled The Pimp Game: Instructional Guide by Mickey Royal; enterprising hip-hop stars market energy drinks called “Pimp Juice” and host television shows like Pimp My Ride; and every year about a dozen U.S. cities host a Players Ball, a gala attended by sex-trade kingpins, where titles like “Pimp of the Year” are awarded to attendees.

Benjamin Perrin argues that granting the figure of the pimp, an oppressor and abuser, legitimacy and even glamour in mainstream culture makes it that much more difficult to combat the sexual slavery and human trafficking now thriving in an increasingly borderless world. In Invisible Chains, Perrin, an assistant law professor at the University of British Columbia, details the ways in which Canada is peculiarly vulnerable to such social ills, explaining how our open immigration policy helps facilitate trafficking, while ineffectual legislation and uncoordinated law enforcement agencies make it difficult to secure convictions.

Drawing on interviews with frustrated officials and recovering victims, Perrin depicts a hellish scenario: foreign pimps obtaining Canadian visas for their prostitutes in order to gain access to a more moneyed clientele; traffickers scouting ESL classes, campuses, and malls for individuals they can kidnap or coerce; slavers depositing their more exhausted and brutalized workers in women’s shelters and detox centres, only to reclaim them once they’ve been nursed back to a semblance of health. Meanwhile, Canadian sex tourists – even those known to police – roam the globe with impunity.

Invisible Chains is based on a comprehensive study that took nearly three years to complete. And while a few of Perrin’s anecdotes seem too circumstantial or vague to substantiate his claims, the overall impact of his findings is undeniable. This useful book bristles with recriminations and recommendations – enough of them, one hopes, to shock our criminal justice system out of its torpor and scandalize readers who still view the pimp as merely a pop culture reference or merchandising gimmick.