The root of prostitution - loan sharks

Prostitution is illegal in USA.  Prohibitionist want it eliminated.  It's a hard sell for locking up consenting adults.  Now they use sex trafficking as an excuse.  They say prostitutes are victims, but round them up anyway to deter prostitution.  They want to go after clients to eliminate demand and hence no victims.  What they can't do much about is loan sharks, the root of prostitution.

By far the largest source of prostitutes in US are loan shark victims.  Typically out of desperation they borrow money back home like Korea and China, anywhere with powerful gangs.  (Or they go to the loan sharks directly in USA.) 

Then they are introduced to smugglers or "agents" to get them to USA or Europe.  These agents charge a lot, say US$70,000 for smuggling from China to USA.  But it's really not difficult to get a visa if you bribe someone to get some documents or just fake it.  These expenses add up to the loan.  Or they are just borrowing the money to get to USA.

Most women know they are selling themselves in US to work off the loans.  This will also include some who don't.  But it doesn't matter to the loan sharks.  They don't care how you repay the money.  These women have no other options.

When they get to US, they are ripped-off by another industry, say wholesalers.  They provide accommodation, meals, and charge high price for their services because these are illegal immigrants, or over staying their visas, or not doing what their visa says.  These wholesalers may own shop fronts such massage parlors or apartments.  And the girls will work there.

The most common are retailers.  They are massage parlor owners, apartment "owners".  They have their client base and market the girls.

So it's naive to think that if you bust the brothel, you save the victims.  First, prostitution is an offense and you punish them.  They lost money and time for the raids.  At the end they still owe the loan shark money.  It's not helping at all.  They have to look for more underground places to work, and in more desperate circumstances.  If they are send back home, they are have to work on local brothels which is much worse off.

What hold back these women is not iron bars, but the threat of loan sharks.  Even if you can offer them protection in US, their family back home are at risk.  For the system to work, these women are still given sufficient incentives.  The more clients they get the sooner they can repay their debt.

If they are good, they are in demand, they get better joins to work on, better clients, more tips.  Usually they can keep their tips, or some of it.  Basically the retail storefronts do not care whether they are working on their own or from the wholesalers.

So it's the nearest scenario any clients are coming close to "trafficking".   Independent girls go to work on their own.  These "trafficked" girls always have a driver to ship them around and to watch them. Sure it's a deterrent to run away, but it's too easy to do that.  Typically these girls need transport because they have no clue where they are and how to go around.  It's a way to keep track of their girls, boat loads of them.  Otherwise, if some go to the beach for a couple of weeks, you wouldn't discover it.