"It is striking that in the year 2001 women should so overwhelmingly be seen as pushed, obligated, coerced or forced when they leave home for the same reason as men: to get ahead through work.  But so entrenched is the idea of women as forming an essential part of home if not actually being it themselves that they are routinely denied the agency to undertake a migration.  So begins a pathetic image of innocent women torn from their homes, coerced into migrating, if not actually shanghaied or sold into slavery.  This is the imagery that nowadays follows those who migrate to places where the only paid occupations available to them are in domestic service or sex work.  The ‘trafficking’ discourse relies on the assumption that it is better for women to stay at home rather than leave it and get into trouble; ‘trouble’ is seen as something that will irreparably damage women (who are grouped with children), while men are routinely expected to encounter and overcome it."

-- Dr Laura Agustín, in Leaving Home for Sex: Prostitution, Sex Work, Travel, Trafficking on lauraagustin.com