Meanwhile data from the UK Network of Sex Work Projects (UKNSWP) records an estimate of 17,081 sex workers in some kind of contact with centres. Of these 4178 - about 24pc - work on the street. A larger total for all sex workers was 48,393. More recent, and rather lower, than the 1999 estimate. So if the hype was real, that would mean anywhere from one in 12 to one in two sex workers was the victim of trafficking. However a close examination of where those estimates came from shows this can’t be true.