Human trafficking is a serious humanitarian problem. Using a nationally representative survey of Bangladeshi child sex workers and an instrumental variable model, we examine the working conditions of trafficked child sex workers and how they differ from those of nontrafficked child sex workers. We find that the victims trade sex with 190 percent more clients at a 67.8 percent lower wage and are more exposed to violence, leading to sickness, such as fever and headache. However, the differences in the prevalence of STDs and injury are insignificant presumably because the owners have an incentive to protect the victims from STDs. These findings suggest that evaluating sex workers’ working conditions by the prevalence of STDs alone may underestimate the severity of the exploitation of victims. Furthermore, conducting an empirical analysis without distinguishing between trafficked and nontrafficked workers, as performed in previous studies, leads to misunderstandings regarding the sex industry. We also contribute to the literature concerning the worst form of child labor by providing the first rigorous evidence of the working conditions of child sex workers. Finally, four implications for practitioners are discussed.

人口贩运是一个严重的人道主义问题。通过对孟加拉国儿童性工作者的全国代表性调查和工具变量模型，我们研究了被贩卖的儿童性工作者的工作条件，以及他们与未被贩卖的儿童性工作者的工作条件有何不同。我们发现，受害者与多出 190% 的客户进行性交易，但工资却降低了 67.8%，并且更容易遭受暴力，导致发烧和头痛等疾病。然而，性病和伤害患病率的差异并不显着，大概是因为业主有保护受害者免受性病侵害的动机。这些发现表明，仅通过 STD 的患病率来评估性工作者的工作条件可能会低估剥削受害者的严重程度。此外，进行实证分析而不区分被贩运和非被贩运的工人，正如之前的研究所做的那样，会导致对性行业的误解。我们还通过提供有关儿童性工作者工作条件的第一个严格证据，为有关最恶劣形式的童工劳动的文献做出贡献。最后，讨论了对从业者的四个影响。