The author analyzes the focus of international attention to the issue of consent related to sex trafficking. She begins with an examination of the treatment given by international documents to trafficking of women for prostitution. She then discusses the demand side of sex trafficking and ends with an analysis of the consequences of treating consent as determinative of whether sex trafficking is a human rights violation. She argues that "this focus on consent obscures the larger issue of gender inequality that underlies and fuels the sex trafficking and prostitution industries.