Sex trafficking
There are a number of misconceptions about sex trafficking. Sex trafficking and human trafficking are not to be confused with human smuggling. Human trafficking for sexual or other labor may involve transporting victims across international borders, but to meet the definition of trafficking, there needs only to be exploitation of an individual after they have been coerced or deceived, so it does not necessarily involve transportation across national borders. Human trafficking and sex trafficking are often used as synonyms. However, trafficking for non-sexual exploitation may be even more prevalent than trafficking for sexual exploitation, though accurate estimates of trafficking rates are extremely difficult to obtain. Sex trafficking tends to receive more attention from aid organizations and donors due to the greater public outrage that forced sexual labor evokes compared to forced non-sexual labor and thus incidents of sex trafficking are more frequently reported.
Human trafficking in California
On the other hand, a federally funded task force conducted a survey and instead looked at a sample of victims reported to the authorities. It found that sex trafficking represented the second largest type of human trafficking at 46%, with labor trafficking representing the largest share at 54%. The discrepancy in results between reported and documented cases could possibly be explained by the fact that sex trafficking is more familiar to authorities, and as a result has a higher chance of being investigated.