Lucinda Peach's essay, Sin, salvation, or starvation, suggests that prostitution is not always intertwined with human trafficking. In many cultures, especially Eastern ones, as Peach points out, sex work is not considered inherently wrong or evil. Instead, it can be viewed a choice that some women make and isn't reviled or disdained. However, the situations that lead these women into such circumstances are generally out of their control and are shaped largely by their patriarchal cultures. Whether women are sent off to temples at a young age, economically forced into sex work because it pays better than other occupations available to women, or are excluded from "normal" marital society from having lost their virginity in one way or another, very few women engaged in sex work-- past or present, in Western or Eastern cultures-- can be said to have freely made their decision.
While being open to the idea that prostitution can be a personal choice, as well as taking away its Christian moral stigma may be a progressive step in our society, the ubiquity of sex work is a clear indicator of heavy, male-dominant oppression.
I agree with these points. I struggled reading this article because I felt that her whole point was to create a "politically correct" viewpoint on prostitution by blaming religion for its immoral stigmas. I don't think it is an issue of religion at all, but of basic violations of human rights.