Receipts, Please! Myths Don’t Stand a Chance

Myth #1: Sex Work and Sex Trafficking Are the Same Thing

Each month in Receipts, Please, we’ll shine a light on some of the most persistent myths surrounding sex work, trafficking, and feminism. We bring you facts, figures, and context - not only so you can hold your own at the next policy meeting, but also so you can dismantle lazy arguments at the dinner table, on social media, or even in the comment section of that “concerned citizens” Facebook group your aunt keeps inviting you to.

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The goal isn’t just to “win” an argument—it’s to shift public understanding away from fear-based myths and toward evidence-based, human-centered solutions. This month, we’re taking on one of the most entrenched misconceptions in the movement: the belief that sex work and sex trafficking are interchangeable terms.

Why This Myth Persists

This myth has deep roots because it serves multiple political and cultural agendas. It’s not just about misunderstanding—it’s about convenience. By blurring the lines between consensual sex work and trafficking, lawmakers, law enforcement, and certain advocacy groups get to present a simplified “good vs. evil” storyline that’s easy to market.

The myth survives because:

• It’s politically expedient. Politicians get to posture as moral heroes without addressing complex systemic issues like poverty wages, housing shortages, and the lack of healthcare access.

• It’s emotionally compelling. Stories framed as “rescues” of supposed trafficking victims are more likely to make the evening news than stories about, say, workplace rights for domestic workers.

• It’s easier to raise money on. Charities and nonprofits can generate donations more easily by invoking the fear of child abduction than by explaining economic migration patterns or labor exploitation.

• It hides messy realities. Addressing the nuances of consent, migration, and economic survival requires nuance—and nuance is bad for soundbites.

In short: conflating sex work with trafficking avoids uncomfortable questions about why so many people turn to sex work in the first place, and it sidesteps the hard work of fixing the systemic conditions that make exploitation possible.

What the Facts Actually Say

Let’s cut through the noise. Here’s what we actually know:

• Fewer than 10% of federal trafficking cases involve adults engaged in consensual sex work. That’s according to federal court data and Department of Justice reporting. The vast majority of trafficking prosecutions involve either non-sexual labor exploitation or situations where consent was absent from the start.

• Globally, labor trafficking is more common than sexual exploitation. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), around 42% of detected trafficking cases are labor trafficking, compared to 36% for sexual exploitation. The rest involve forced criminality, organ trafficking, or mixed exploitation.

• Sex work and trafficking are distinct legal categories in both international and U.S. law—though policy and enforcement often ignore this distinction in practice.

When public attention is fixated on the sex industry, we leave a massive number of trafficking survivors—particularly those in agriculture, domestic work, and manufacturing—without the public outrage and policy resources they deserve.

How the Confusion Causes Harm

Conflating sex work and trafficking doesn’t just waste resources—it actively makes life more dangerous for sex workers and less safe for trafficking survivors.

Here’s how:

1. Resources Are Misdirected

Billions of taxpayer dollars go toward high-profile “anti-trafficking” stings that primarily arrest adult, consensual sex workers. This law enforcement-first model produces:

• Short-term headlines for police departments.

• Arrest records and court fines for workers.

• Zero meaningful disruption to actual trafficking networks.

Meanwhile, survivors of labor trafficking—often migrant workers in isolated or controlled environments—are left largely invisible to the systems supposedly built to help them.

2. Shelters Are Scarce

When we do find survivors—of any form of trafficking—our support systems are grossly inadequate. Consider this:

• In the U.S., there are seven times more animal shelters than domestic violence shelters.

• Many existing shelters exclude sex workers entirely if they have a criminal record, a substance use history, or aren’t willing to participate in religious programming.

This means that a trafficking survivor who doesn’t fit the “ideal victim” profile—young, female, and “grateful to be rescued”—may have nowhere to go.

3. Policy Gets Skewed

Criminalization drives consensual sex work underground, making it harder for workers to report coercion or exploitation without risking arrest themselves. This has a chilling effect:

• Sex workers become less likely to seek police help when threatened or assaulted.

• Trafficking victims embedded within sex work venues may never be identified because those venues operate outside the law.

• The “rescue” narrative often results in raids where both trafficked and non-trafficked workers are swept up, with no follow-up support.

What Needs to Change

If we’re serious about combating trafficking, our policies have to be rooted in evidence—not moral panic. That means:

• Decriminalizing consensual adult sex work. This removes the fear of arrest for workers, making it easier for them to report abuse and exploitation without self-incrimination.

• Redirecting funding toward housing, healthcare, and survivor services. These are the core needs that prevent both entry into exploitative situations and re-trafficking after escape.

• Treating labor trafficking with urgency. We must recognize and respond to forced labor in agriculture, domestic work, construction, and service industries with the same level of visibility and outrage currently reserved for sex trafficking.

• Centering survivors in policy design. Those with lived experience—whether in sex work, trafficking, or both—should be leading the conversation about what real solutions look like.

Learn More

We’ve barely scratched the surface of this conversation. If you want to dig deeper:

• Discover why conflating sex work with trafficking is counterproductive and how this narrative actively undermines both feminist and anti-trafficking goals.

• Understand labor trafficking, the often-overlooked majority of trafficking cases worldwide, and why it gets so little media coverage.

• Explore the need to redirect funding from punitive crackdowns to community-based support systems that actually help people exit exploitative situations.

You can find resources, research links, and more survivor-led analysis at SWOPBehindBars.org. Subscribe to our newsletter to stay up-to-date on upcoming myths we’ll be busting—and help us make sure that the next time someone throws “sex work is trafficking” into the conversation, you’ll be ready to respond with the receipts.