Human trafficking
The problems against anti-trafficking raids are related to the problem of the trafficking concept itself, as raids' purpose of fighting sex trafficking may be conflated with fighting prostitution. The Trafficking Victims Protection Re-authorization Act of 2005 (TVPRA) gives state and local law enforcement funding to prosecute customers of commercial sex, therefore some law enforcement agencies make no distinction between prostitution and sex trafficking. One study interviewed women who have experienced law enforcement operations as sex workers and found that during these raids meant to combat human trafficking, none of the women were ever identified as trafficking victims, and only one woman was asked whether she was coerced into sex work. The conflation of trafficking with prostitution, then, does not serve to adequately identify trafficking and help the victims. Raids are also problematic in that the women involved were most likely unclear about who was conducting the raid, what the purpose of the raid was, and what the outcomes of the raid would be.
Human trafficking in China
The problem of sex trafficking stems from the gender imbalance present in China. Women are most likely sold into provinces like Henan in which the gender imbalance is particularly stark and where there is a high demand for women. Often, men kidnap the women after enticing them with promises of employment and money, but later sell them to villages and other provinces. Trafficked women are often then forced into marriage and therefore suffer from prolonged sexual exploitation. Particularly, according to the article on "Human Trafficking and Smuggling in China" by Cindy Chu, trafficked women were usually aged between 20 and 50 in the past, but "recently most of them were under 20 and some were girls as young as 12 years old."