Migrant sex work
Sex work and sex trafficking conflation is also a heavily debated legal topic. Several scholars argue that existing legal provisions aimed at combating human trafficking, such as the U.S. Trafficking Victims Protection Act and the 2000 United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, do not adequately account for the variety of sex worker conditions and contexts, voluntary or involuntary. For instance, Filipina hostesses who migrate to Japan to work as entertainers must give up their legal documents to their recruiters during the migration process. While the law considers the process of giving up a passport to a third party intermediary as a condition of human trafficking, several scholars, activists, and the sex workers themselves do not regard this to be human trafficking, particularly when individuals consent to this component of the migration process.
Prostitution
Sex trafficking is defined as using coercion or force to transport an unwilling person into prostitution or other sexual exploitation. The United Nations stated in 2009 that sex trafficking is the most commonly identified form of human trafficking and estimates that about 79% of human trafficking reported is for prostitution (although the study notes that this may be the result of statistical bias and that sex trafficking tends to receive the most attention and be the most visible). Sex trafficking has been described by Kul Gautum, Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF, as "the largest slave trade in history." It is also the fastest growing criminal industry, predicted to outgrow drug trafficking. While there may be a higher number of people involved in slavery today than at any time in history, the proportion of the population is probably the smallest in history.