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.
Migrant sex work
State response may differ based on anti-human trafficking attitudes that often prevail. Some states are sympathetic to migrant sex workers who are considered to be victims of human trafficking and not voluntary sex workers. Some governments, such as that of the United States, provide legal and health services to individuals who engage in commercial sex if these individuals are proven and officially certified by law enforcement to be victims of human trafficking.