What I Learned by Being a Migrant Sex Worker (Part 1): Parrenas

A decade ago, the U.S. government determined that apart from terrorism, the gravest threat to democracy in the world was human trafficking. It vowed to wage war on this scourge as well as on terrorism.

A series of congressional hearings focused attention on what was said to be the forced labor, debt bondage and coerced migration of 800,000 individuals, 80 percent of whom supposedly were women and children, throughout the world. Emphasis was placed on trafficking in the sex industry. The hearings culminated in passage of the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000.