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.
Arizona League to End Regional Trafficking
Human trafficking is nothing short of modern-day slavery. It is the act of subjecting a person to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage or slavery, for labor or commercial sexual services, through the use of force, fraud or coercion. Trafficking victims are enslaved in situations that are abusive, exploitative, inhumane, and illegal. They are primarily economically disadvantaged men, women and children from all over the world. They are forced to work in the sex industry or in labor such as domestic servitude, manufacturing, construction, agricultural work, hotels, restaurants, nail salons, etc.