Young women may be more prone to scrutiny because, in addition to drugs and terrorism, one of the big things they are looking for at customs is human trafficking. Criminals buy women tickets and tell them they’ll be getting modeling jobs.

The women travel alone because there’s less risk of getting caught, especially when they have no idea what’s really going on. Once through customs, someone from the criminal organization intercepts them.

Most people I know consider it extremely dangerous for a young woman to travel alone, especially to places like Mexico where human trafficking is common or to Muslim countries where a solo female traveler is considered disreputable. I knew a young woman who was gang raped in Egypt by a group of young boys and the police did nothing. Their attitude was “what else would you expect?”