It is taken as a given that the imperative to act against both trafficking and HIV and AIDS is already understood, as there are many responses to trafficking and/or HIV and AIDS in the region. The objective of this article is not to provide a detailed analysis of HIV and AIDS and trafficking in the region, nor is it to provide a detailed critique of the responses. Rather, it aims to put forward a conceptual framework based on current understandings and responses within which to locate responses to HIV and AIDS and trafficking and to facilitate the deconstruction of what are understood to be vulnerabilities'. The paper seeks to analyse the links between current responses to trafficking and HIV and AIDS, understand the realities of women's and girls' lives - both women living with HIV and AIDS and those who have been trafficked - as well as examine vulnerability through understanding power as a problem. It will propose a conceptual framework which brings together analysis and understanding and further develops our understanding of the issues using a feminist approach.

In August 2002, while briefing the press in Lusaka, a United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) official warned Zambia to brace itself for increased sex work, crime and exploitation if food contingency measures were not immediately addressed. UNICEF feared the food and water crisis and increasing poverty in the country's southern province might create a new set of social problems for women and children'.1 MAPODE (Movement of Community Action for the Prevention and Protection of Young People Against Poverty, Destitution, Diseases and Exploitation), an organisation running a street children and sex worker outreach programme in Lusaka City, was not surprised by UNICEF's concern. That same year, the organisation had conducted a study on sex work and trafficking of women and children in Zambia. This focus relies on these findings, pointing to the link between poverty, sex work, trafficking and the global sex industry. It contextualises these issues by pointing to gender and feminist concepts and proposed prevention and protection strategies.

The trafficking of human organs for transplant purposes appears to be a growing problem for South Africa and the developing world at large. The international nature of this trade suggests that there are global or universal root causes to this phenomenon, which include rapidly changing societal attitudes towards ‘the body' and economic pressures. While this global perspective is crucial to understanding the growth of this trade, I will argue in this focus that certain topical factors, such as HIV/AIDS, poverty, labour market conditions and health behaviours, compound these effects in South Africa. It will be shown that the effects of these supplementary factors are felt more acutely by women, and therefore, this paper will explore possible implications for the gender dimensions of organ trafficking. Specifically, the aim of this focus is to examine whether women are likely to become more vulnerable to a market for kidney trafficking in South Africa.