In Chinese culture, the underworld is seen as a horrendous place where the evil are severely punished for their misdeeds. For example, you get your tongue ripped out for spreading nasty rumours or your eyes gouged out for peeping. The concept of the underworld is so popular that it is portrayed in Chinese theme parks around the world, including Haw Par Villa, a mythological theme park in Singapore and the City of Ghosts in Fengdu, China. This graphical presentation, with the bizarre and gory depiction of the ten Courts of Hell, will be one hell of a ride for you!

Geopolitics is an increasingly important tool to understand national and international relations. This book unravels how organized crime is not just a marginal problem but part of a bigger geopolitical and asymmetrical warfare strategy. It seeks to establish a direct relationship between Nation States and organized crime groups. Many States have been using criminal and terrorist organizations as a policy for issues of national sovereignty or as a tool to strengthen a nation’s geopolitical position. This book demonstrates how national states are utilizing criminal organizations in covert operations and "dirty jobs" such as espionage, proxy war, arms trafficking and sabotage. Examples from the United States, China and the Soviet Union are explored, providing both an historical and contemporary analysis, from World War II through to the Cold War and to the present day. The book brings together perspectives from international relations and criminology drawing on insights from a variety of sources, including public documents and interviews.

The last few decades have seen a huge increase in attention paid to the trafficking of human beings, often referred to as modern-day slavery. International and national policies and protocols have been developed and billions of dollars spent to combat the issue and protect trafficking victims. Yet it continues to flourish and human beings, in both the Global North and the Global South, continue to be degraded to the level of commodities and smuggled across borders for profit. Drawing upon feminist and human rights approaches to trafficking, this book links the worlds of policy, protocols, and social structures to the lived experience and conditions of trafficked people. Recognizing that trafficking for sex, labor, and body parts often overlaps in a broader context shaped by poverty, violence, and shrinking access to rights, the authors offer a more thoroughgoing account of this social problem. Only with such an integrated approach can we understand the exploitative conditions that make people vulnerable to trafficking, and the progress – as well as gaps – in initiatives seeking to address it.